PHOENIX, Oct. 8, 1997 — In his keynote address at DCI’s Data Warehouse Conference & Exposition today, Microsoft Executive Vice President Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft® Repository has received the support of the Metadata Coalition. The Metadata Coalition is an industry consortium of 53 vendors dedicated to fostering a standard means for vendors to exchange metadata to allow customers to configure
“best of breed”
applications that meet their particular computing needs. As part of this cooperative effort, the coalition will work closely with Microsoft in reviewing extensions to Microsoft Repository and the Open Information Model to extend component interoperability.
In addition, Evolutionary Technologies International (ETI), the coalition co-chair, has announced that the coalition will provide a translator for conversions between the coalition’s Metadata Interchange Specification (MDIS) and Microsoft Repository. The translator will be made available as freeware to all coalition members.
“The coalition is pleased to see this cooperative effort,”
said Katherine Hammer, president and CEO of Evolutionary Technologies and co-chair of the Metadata Coalition.
“We’re delighted to see a company of Microsoft’s reputation supporting this very important area of metadata interoperability.”
“It’s exciting to see yet another wave of strong support for Microsoft Repository, already the most broadly licensed and supported in the industry,”
said Jon Roskill, director of marketing for visual tools at Microsoft.
“Customers will benefit from a broadly supported, consistent way of sharing and reuse between products from many different vendors.”
“Sharing metadata through the support of a common repository will significantly reduce the cost and complexity of administering data warehouse systems,”
said Joe Brown, product manager for data warehousing at Microsoft.
“Participation by many interested ISVs will help ensure the efficient development and widespread adoption of Microsoft Repository for this purpose.”
About Microsoft Repository
Microsoft Repository was designed with an open architecture for use by multiple products from different vendors. The repository, based on a joint design specification from Microsoft and Sterling Software Inc., is a database that stores and shares software components along with their descriptive information. More than a database, however, the repository creates and manages the relationships between the items it contains. It delivers important capabilities to desktop and server environments in five key areas: reuse, tool interoperability, team development, data resource management and dependency tracking. The Repository consists of an Open Information Model, a set of published COM interfaces, and an engine that sits on top of a relational database such as Microsoft SQL Server
™
.
About the Metadata Coalition
The Metadata Coalition was founded in October 1995 by a group of industry-leading vendors aiming to define a tactical set of standard specifications for the access and interchange of metadata between software tools. Participation in the Metadata Coalition is open to all vendors and end users. MDIS version 1.1, as well as general information about the Metadata Coalition, is available through the coalition home page on the World Wide Web at (http://www.he.net/~metadata) . Members of the Metadata Council, the group’s steering committee, are Arbor Software Corp., Business Objects Americas, Cognos Corp., Evolutionary Technologies International Inc., Intellidex Systems LLC, Nations Bank and PLATINUM technology inc. The 53-vendor-strong coalition includes the following companies:
Apertus Technologies Inc.
Arbor Software Corp.
Bank of Hawaii
Brio Technology Inc.
Business Objects Americas
Carleton Corp.
Citibank
Cognos Corp.
Commercial Financial Services Inc.
Computer Sciences Corp. Financial
Services Group
Compuware Corp.
Datamind Corp.
DataMirror Corp.
Defense Information Systems
Agency
Engage Technologies Inc.
Essential Strategies Inc.
Evolutionary Technologies
International Inc.
Fiserv Pittsburgh Center
IBM Corp.
Informatica Corp.
Information Advantage Inc.
Information Builders Inc.
Information Policy & Plans (IPP)
Branch, Australian Department of
Defence
Informix Software Inc.
Intellidex Systems LLC
IQ Software Corp.
Leonard’s Logic
LogicWorks Inc.
Mercy Health Services
The MITRE Corp.
Nations Bank
NCR Corp.
PLATINUM technology inc.
Price Waterhouse LLP
Prism Solutions Inc.
The Prudential Insurance Company
of America
Royal Bank of Canada
SAS Institute Inc.
Saxe Inc.
Scopus Technology Inc.
Softlab GmbH
Software AG of North America Inc.
Sterling Software Inc.
Stuart McIntosh
Sybase Inc.
Systems Techniques Inc.
Technology Transfer Institute
Torrent Systems Inc.
Transtar Software Inc.
Tridas International Ltd.
United States Automobile
Association
Viasoft Corp.
VMARK Software Inc.
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