Objectivity Inc has put its Objectivity/DB object database up on Digital Equipment Corp’s Alpha AXP workstations running OSF/1, but also plans to release a Microsoft Corp Windows NT version for the Alpha RISC in early 1994. The Menlo Park, California-based company not only attests that it is the first vendor to make an object database available on a 64-bit hardware architecture, it also reckons that it is the only one to offer an object database architecture built around a 64-bit address space. And, it also claims, Objectivity/DB runs twice as fast on the Alpha as it does on a Sun Microsystems Inc Sparcstation. The product costs $15,000 for a single developers licence and $2,000 per end-user licence for a single application. The firm also says it is now marketing – and jointly developed – Persistent Storage Inc’s Persistence software bridge – this sits between object-oriented and relational databases and enables customers to use relational tables with object-based C++ applications. It also expects to see the first fruits of its alliance with Dharma Systems Inc by the end of the year – Objectivity/DB will both incorporate Dharma’s SQL engine and support Microsoft Corp’s ODBC Open Data Base Connectivity standard, which means relational database users will be able to access it. And, Objectivity says, it is also developing – marketing and selling – Micram Microelectronics GmbH’s Classify/DB graphical user interface builder for Objectivity/DB. The group claims that Classify/DB is the first Object Query Language compiler, but it now wants to broaden out the product’s conversion mechanism Micram was given an early draft of the Object Management Group’s specification for Object Query Language. Finally, Objectivity plans to set up an operation in Europe within the next twelve months. The company now generates between 15% and 20% of its revenues in the region, but wants to increase eta test in the first quarter of 1994 and is scheduled to ship in the third quarter, Hitachi says. The Object Re-use Library meanwhile is the company’s first product designed to exploit libraries of reusable software components. It operates on networks of Unix workstations and provides a central data repository that co-ordinates re-use of code between more than one development team. In its simplest form, the Object Re-use Library server maintains a database of software objects that can be written in C++ or ObjectIQ code, so users can browse the various libraries for documentation, advice, examples diagrams, and reusable code. The Object Re-use Library will go in to beta test by the end of the year and version 1.0 will ship in the first quarter 1994.
