With the dBase world now concentrated in the powerful hands of Borland International Inc (since its Ashton-Tate acquisition), Microsoft Corp (with its pending Fox Software Inc acquisition) and Computer Associates International Inc (which made a move on Clipper developer Nantucket Corp at the beginning of May), efforts to develop the various languages into an ANSI standard under the Xbase tag have now begun at the American National Standards Institution in Scottsdale, Arizona (CI No 1,918). Some estimates say that up to 9.5m people are now using some type of dBase, yet the three main variants are not cross-compatible. Xbase is being coined as a generic name for dBase compatibility, the aim being that all compiled forms of Xbase will be compliant. Aside from the big three, the move is being supported by Wordtech Inc, Emerald Bay Group, Dvorak Development Corp and Recital Ltd. Bracknell, UK-based Recital (which has a US subsidiary in Boston), which started off back in 1988 with the aim of helping dBase, FoxBase and Clipper users to migrate to Unix and VAX/VMS machines, welcomes Xbase, as it removes the possibilities of legal threats over dBase. But as for cross-compatibility, Recital already has it. The latest release, Recital 7.2, offers a graphical user interface-like front-end to the language and database product for character-based terminals. An X Window version is under development. Meanwhile Recital has launched its first client-server version, enabling Digital Equipment Corp users to use the Recital language as a front-end to an Rdb database. Unix versions will follow at intervals of eight weeks for Oracle, Informix (C-ISAM), Ingres and Sybase. Recital is also working on a version for Microsoft’s NT. European general manager Barry Betts hints darkly that Microsoft has great plans for a combination of NT and FoxBase, and wonders whether the current compatibility problems will ever be sold, Xbase or not. If you’re Hewlett-Packard Co, and you haven’t got a guarantee that it will run, then get Sybase, he says optimistically.
