Ochre Development Inc, the Australian client-server application development house that is setting-up in Burlingame, California (CI No 2,509) is pitching its Ochre Platform against what it describes as other second generation development system independent software vendors such as Forte Software Inc, Dynasty Technologies Inc and even Informix Software Inc. Powersoft, Gupta Corp and the other database companies are back in prehistoric technology as far as it is concerned. Ochre’s dynamic model provides for the distribution of logic processing, that is the ability to process an application on different parts of a client-server system using some fairly complex messaging. It incorporates an object-oriented scripting language, mixed graphical and command line, with all the usual object functions and features it claims can be learnt in three days. The model can already interface to Tuxedo and Top End transaction processing monitors with Encina support to follow. The system enables rules and applications created with its system to move freely around the system environment, on to different processors and operating systems. Existing applications can be wrapped for use within the Ochre environment, but remain tied to their system of origin. The Ochre engine is installed on the client and server and comes with a dynamic, shared repository for object information that the company says can be accessed at all times. Executable code is kept in an object store. The Ochre Platform server generates messages to be sent to other parts of the system, but those messages can ride atop a variety of transport mechanisms, the company claims. Ochre currently incorporates Peerlogic Inc’s Pipe peer-to-peer symmetrical message-passing software and says its infrastructure can be quickly tailored to provide direct access to specific Common Object Request Broker Architecture, Object Request Brokers, Distributed Computing Environment and other Remote Procedure Calls. TCP/IP and other technologies, such as Covia Technologies Inc’s Communications Integrator, can also be supported as requested. Indeed, one customer has integrated its Ochre Platform with ICL Plc’s DAIS Object Request Broker. The server itself is a 600Kb executable with a Windows front-end. Ochre’s dynamic model enables core business rules to be modified for deployment in different market or geographical areas. This presents coherency problems, the company has acknowledged, but an application is more than useless if it simply cannot be used due to some local constraints or differences that a static model cannot accommodate. For the beginning of 1995, the company plans an object synchroniser in Ochre Platform Release 5.0; it is currently at 4.3. Ochre is looking for resellers and OEM customers in the independent software vendor and hardware community, and says it has already begun talking with several firms, including database vendors about Ochre Platform.
Transported from Australia
Its pitch is that it will be easier for Oracle Corps and Sybase Incs to adopt Ochre than to develop their own second-generation tools. It is looking for European distributors and is distributed in Asia by Cincom Systems Inc. Prices start at $15,000 per developer and $200 for a Windows front-end and $25,000 for a large server deployment. It is up under Unix, Windows NT and VMS; Macintosh and Motif clients will be supported from Release 5.0. It was launched in April 1993 Down Under with four sites, and the company now has a couple of dozen users around the region and is looking for beta prospects in the US. It is pitching to organisations with large, complex application requirements with lots of users. The 60-strong, privately-held Sydney company recently received a second tranche of venture funding from its major investor, CSA Holdings of Singapore, and is using the capital to expand beyond its Asia-Pacific focus, first to North America. The company did around $4m last financial year and expects to have doubled that in the current period. The California unit has four staff, three transported from Australia and one l
ocal. The office is headed by president and chief executive Gary Aitchison.
