ORACLE ANNOUNCES ORACLE POWER OBJECTS VERSION 2.0

Beta Testers Applaud Advances in Productivity, Performance and Portability

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Sept. 25, 1996--Oracle Corp. today announced the full set of features in Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0, Oracle's visual development tool for BASIC developers, expected to ship in the fourth quarter of 1996. Building on the strengths of Version 1.0 released one year ago, Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 now offers BASIC developers new capabilities in a single tool for building mobile, client/server and intranet applications.

Beta testers have begun to take advantage of new and enhanced features that support greater development productivity, application performance, intranet development, cross-platform portability and wider database support and integration, including Personal Oracle Lite. Applauded by 100 early testers reviewing the product since July, Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 now moves into a broader round of more than 500 beta users worldwide.

"Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 gives us the flexibility to develop high-performance BASIC database applications that are very portable," said Bob Hoskin, Principal at Heartland Software, an Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 beta tester. "They can stand alone or run as client/server or intranet systems and be deployed on a whole range of database and OS platforms."

Addressing Developer Needs User feedback from Oracle Power Objects Version 1.0 has been instrumental in developing Version 2.0.

"We're addressing a large number of corporate developers using BASIC who must meet their organization's requirements for database access and integration, platform portability and openness, and intranet development," said Sohaib Abbasi, senior vice president of the Tools Product Division, Oracle Corp. "Only Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 addresses these issues and enables developers to improve their productivity and the performance of their applications."

Powerful New Features

Power Objects' intranet development capabilities enable users to run fully-functional client/server applications directly from Web browsers that support the plug-in architecture such as Oracle PowerBrowser 1.5, Netscape Navigator 2.0 or 3.0 or Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0. Crystal Reports, the popular workgroup reporting tool, can be generated into HTML for intranet deployment. Power Objects' PowerBrowser ActiveX control embeds a fully-functional Web browser into any application.
Crystal Reports Version 5.0 Professional Edition, provides new reporting capabilities. This includes a release for the Macintosh, making Crystal Reports available to Macintosh developers for the first time.
Personal Oracle Lite is integrated into Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 for local data. This lightweight Oracle database fits into less than one megabyte of memory and has the power and flexibility of databases up to 10 times its size, providing an ideal solution for mass deployment to desktop or mobile laptop PCs. Bi-directional replication requiring no additional components makes updating data between Personal Oracle Lite and Oracle7 quick and easy.
A new external OLE-based API allows Windows programmers to control Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 from other applications and opens up the market to third-party Power Objects Add-ins.
Open database support is available through native support for the Oracle7 database (Oracle 7.1, 7.2 and Oracle(R) Universal Server(R) and integrated INTERSOLV ODBC DataDirect drivers. This enables access to data stored in Microsoft SQL Server 6.0, Sybase System 10, Informix, ASCII files, Excel, FoxPro and others and allows users to simultaneously access data in a desktop application such as Excel and data in client/server databases like Sybase System 10.
Native 32-bit support for Windows 95 and Windows NT, in addition to Windows 3.1, enables Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 to be easily developed and deployed on both 32-bit and 16-bit systems.
Power Objects' cross-platform portability, offers support for application development and deployment on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. It is the only BASIC rapid application development tool available for both Mac 68K and PowerPC Macintosh platforms.
An enhanced user interface design offers users an Object Browser for viewing and manipulating client and server objects, an Integrated Code Editor, 18 new data-aware ActiveX controls and several other controls, including a Data Bound Grid Control that provides users and developers with spreadsheet-like functionality within Power Objects applications.
Crescent ActiveX Controls, popular among Visual Basic developers, are among the ActiveX controls bundled in Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0, as announced in a separate news release today. These Crescent controls include a calendar display control, enhanced command buttons, list boxes and spin controls that enable developers to easily extend the functionality of their applications.
An extremely light footprint illustrates the emphasis Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 puts on enabling mobile applications. The Power Objects Designer executable is a little more than 2.0 MB in size, while the end-user's run-time environment is just over 1.0 MB.
Seamless migration of Oracle Power Objects Version 1.0 applications, requires no recoding. A graphical migration wizard is provided for data migration.

Pricing and Availability Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 Client/Server Edition and Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 Professional Edition is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 1996. Pricing will be announced at Oracle's worldwide user conference, Oracle Open World, Nov. 3-8, San Francisco.

A multimedia demonstration of Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0's new features can be downloaded from the Oracle homepage at http://www.oracle.com/.

Oracle Power Objects Version 2.0 is Oracle's visual development tool for BASIC developers to build mobile, client/server and intranet applications.

It combines strong database integration with established industry standards such as BASIC and OLE, new techniques including visual object orientation, Netscape's Plug-in architecture for intranet-enabled applications and a unique drag and drop metaphor for ease of use. It is the most productive way for Windows and Macintosh developers to rapidly build robust Web and workgroup information systems.

Oracle Corp. is the world's second largest software company, and the largest supplier of software for information management. With annual revenues of more than $4.2 billion, the company offers its database, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education, and support services, in more than 90 countries around the world.

For more information about Oracle, please contact Oracle's headquarters at (415) 506-7000. Oracle's World Wide Web address is http://www.oracle.com/.

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Trademarks:

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Oracle7, Oracle Power Objects, Oracle Open World, Oracle Personal Lite and PowerBrowser are a trademark of Oracle Corporation. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.