A company tipped to be worth keeping an eye on in the object-oriented technology world is Irish software house Iona Technology Ltd, Dublin, Ireland, the company that has just added Sun Microsystems Inc’s SunSoft unit to its share register and a seat on its board (CI No 2,332). Iona has made two separate technology submissions to the the Object Management Group over recent months – one to do with transaction processing, the other, a C++ interface co-developed with SunSoft to link the Object Group’s Interface Definition Language with C++ programs. After the deal with SunSoft, Iona is in discussions with other vendors about enabling their respective object request broker implementations, all based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, to interoperate with each other – Object Request Brokers enable objects and non-object applications to communicate with each other. According to Iona, the Object Group’s idea was to issue a Request for Technology, see which vendors responded, then sit them all down in one room and have them thrash out ideas for designing such a mechanism. Iona divides the responses into two camps. The first, it reckons, is led by the Open Software Foundation, which hopes to rally IBM Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co behind developing a common underwire protocol based on the Distributed Computing Environment – or a completely new protocol. The second camp, which is headed by Sun, advocates the use of protocol-to-protocol translators. Iona says it doesn’t really care which camp wins the political struggle – it will simply evaluate each of the recommendations and go with the best one or it might develop its own product, when it has enough of an understanding of other manufacturers’ object request brokers.
Unable to compromise As for Iona’s other submissions, it is working with Novell Inc and Compagnie des Machines Bull SA to enable their respective implementations of the Unix Systems Group Tuxedo transaction processing monitor to work with its Orbix C++ object request broker. Prototype models are already complete, it says. Iona also claims that the C++ interface for linking the Object Management Group’s Interface Definition Language with C++ programs, which it co-developed with SunSoft and submitted to the Object Group, has not yet lost the struggle against the HyperDesk Corp equivalent. HyperDesk’s offering, it says, has simply been ratified by the relevant task force, and not by the Object Group board. Iona says that SunSoft and HyperDesk were unable to compromise, but errs on the Californian company’s side given its relationship with the firm. Strategically, Iona says its main aim is to provide links between different operating systems and to establish itself firmly as a hardware-independent vendor. Orbix is currently available for SunSoft Inc Solaris and Microsoft Corp Windows NT – support for HP-UX, AIX, OSF/1 and Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unix is planned for the current quarter. A Windows 3.1 version is scheduled for this month or next. Iona was established as a company in 1991 by researchers who had formerly worked at Trinity College in Dublin, where they went by the name of the Distributed Systems Group. Their research on distributed technologies was funded by the European Commission’s Esprit project, which initially also provided the young firm with contracts to offer C++, object-oriented technology, design and methodology training courses, and to provide consultancy services for setting up Unix networks. Iona now subcontracts the training work out, while the consultancy side is fading away because it is too labour-intensive and too expensive. The income from these contracts provided the company with the resources to develop Orbix, which shipped in June. The 10-person outfit claims about 100 organisations are currently evaluating Orbix, and several are said to be negotiating OEM rights. Iona is also talking to software houses about their integrating their products with its Orbix.
