October 28, 1996
Issue: 603
Section: Top Of The Week
By Rich Levin
The Internet age of application development has arrived. Microsoft, Next, Oracle, and Powersoft are about to launch a salvo of Web development tools aimed at enterprise developers building database-driven applications. Together, these products could significantly reduce the effort required to move client-server applications to the Web's thin-client model.
Microsoft on Oct. 28 will distribute unfinished code, or alpha copies, of its long-overdue Internet Studio to attendees of its Site Builder Conference in San Jose, Calif. Release of a test version of the client-server Web development tool is now scheduled for November, and a final version is slated for delivery in first-quarter 1997.
On Nov. 4, Oracle is expected to announce Developer/2000 for the Web, a significant upgrade to the company's flagship development tool that adds turnkey Web capabilities. Sources say officials of the Redwood Shores, Calif., company on Oct. 29 will preview the product running on a Sun JavaStation NC when Sun Microsystems unveils its network computer at its Java Enterprise Solutions event in New York (see story, p. 24)
Client-Side Portability
Internet Studio programs-which Microsoft calls Active Server applications-can be run through any Web browser, without requiring ActiveX or Java components, according to sources close to the development project. Client-side portability is delivered by an "open" back-end application server, code-named Denali, which supports any tool capable of generating Active Scripts or ActiveX components.
Denali does things like track where a user is within a Web application, oversee user authentication, globally pool database connections and maintain them across users, precompile and process script code, and cache compiled code for optimized performance, says a source testing the product. "This matters when you have thousands and thousands of concurrent users," the source says.
Denali is a key piece of Microsoft's Active Server initiative, which also includes Viper, a component-based transaction monitor and dynamic run-time partitioning/load balancing engine; and Falcon, a store-and-forward asynchronous component messaging subsystem.
"The computer industry today is just nuts. We can't keep up, trying to tie these different pieces together," says Alexander Pellow, senior software consultant with Cornerstone Information Services, a client-server development and consulting firm in Austin, Texas. "These products tie down the low level, which we depend on being solid and communicating, and it makes me extremely happy-because we won't have to build it anymore."
While Microsoft builds its Active Server framework, Oracle will begin shipping beta copies of its Developer/2000 for the Web. Oracle officials plan to give all users of Developer/2000 for Windows NT and Solaris free test copies of the new release.
The product, which is expected to enter a testing phase in less than 60 days, automatically provides browser capabilities to existing Developer/2000 applications. Virtually no programming effort is required, beyond rehosting applications on a compatible Web server, according to sources who have seen the product demo.
Also slated to be introduced this week is a $99 Internet Developer Toolkit from the Powersoft Business Group of Sybase Inc. in Concord, Mass. The kit accompanies PowerBuilder 5.0 for Windows, and bundles Powersoft's Web PB middleware with a collection of class libraries and HTML wizards that accelerate development of PowerBuilder-based Web servers. Next Software last week rolled out version 3.0 of its WebObjects, which includes WebObjects Builder, a graphical tool that Next expects will make the product valuable to business users and Webmasters, in addition to the traditional developer base.
"Ultimately, it comes down to core competency," says Evan Quinn, object technology analyst for International Data Corp., a market research firm in Framingham, Mass., "and everybody is doing the right thing for their core competencies. Oracle's is database. Microsoft's are APIs, tools, and software, and they know how to work channels and form ISV partnerships. Strategically, in the long run, those probably play out pretty well."
Copyright * 1996 CMP Media Inc.