Platinum Technology Inc is heading a new group called the Open Object Alliance that intends to develop a model for object-oriented analysis, design and construction tools and some sort of sharing mechanism between the tools. It is a response to the Object Management Group’s request for object-oriented tools interoperability standards from its Analysis & Design special interest group, in particular the part about object-oriented analysis and design methodologies or notations (CI No 2,943). It is also a reaction to Rational Software Corp’s proposal of a Unified Modeling Language. The submissions are due by the end of January and are expected to be ratified around June. The group’s submission will include support for Rational’s Modeling Language, which is on version 0.9 right now, as well as standard object methods, including Booch, Martin/Odell and the like. Rational has been working on its specification for more than a year now, so it’s difficult to see how much the new group can really add. Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois-based Platinum says its version will support Rational’s Unified Modeling Language and the Open Modeling Language. Platinum claims Rational’s meta-model is restrictive but we’re not quite sure why. The group claims it will produce a vendor-neutral metamodel with Corba and ActiveX bindings that supports the Computer-Aided Software Engineering Data Interchange Format metamodel, the Common Object Methodology Meta-model Architecture design methodologies and a definition of the software engineering meta-model with Corba bindings that enables extensibility on the fly. Products are expected by the end of next year. The group of 28 compris-es software firms including ParcPlace-Digitalk Inc, Intersolv Inc, i-Logix Corp and Intellicorp Inc, together with Swiss Bank Corp and the Center for Object Technology Applications & Research, among others. It is led by Platinum’s Erick Rivas, Paradigm Plus designer.
