Imperial Software Technology Ships Powerful New GUI Builder; X-Designer 4.5 Breaks New Ground With Built-In Testing Tool, Protects User Investments in Legacy Applications.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 20, 1996--Imperial Software Technology is now shipping its latest version of X-Designer, the award-winning graphical user interface (GUI) builder that fundamentally changes Motif and Windows application development.

X-Designer 4.5 is the first GUI builder to incorporate testing tools within the product, giving developers a framework for rapidly developing test suites. These suites can be tailored and extended, delivering higher levels of application development productivity and quality.

In addition, X-Designer 4.5 also incorporates XD/Capture, a breakthrough in streamlining the migration of UNIX applications to PC platforms, ensuring that companies can maintain their investment in previously-developed applications.

"With X-Designer 4.5, you no longer need those expensive GUI testing tools," said Derek Lambert, president and CEO of Imperial Software Technology, "because we've built a powerful, extensible testing capability right into the GUI builder. We're the first and only GUI product on the market to have this. Not only that, but we've included this enhancement at no extra cost."

Lambert continued, "With this and the other great new features such as XD/Capture, which allows you to capture the design of existing Motif applications, IST is shipping the most cost-effective, high performance package in the GUI builder market today."

Fujitsu Harnesses X-Designer for Chip Design Applications

Fujitsu's Network Products Division (NPD) in Manchester, U.K. is the company's worldwide center for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) chip development. Its software development team builds applications that provide support for NPD's design activities.

"The nature of our business requires complex graphical applications, most of which run on UNIX workstations," said Andy Slough, senior software engineer at Fujitsu. "We are mainly Sun-based, so when Sun moved from OpenLook to Motif we needed a motif GUI builder which was effective and intuitive. X-Designer has proven to be reliable and straightforward to use. We're also working on a project that will require a move onto the PC platform in the near future and plan to use X-Designer to efficiently handle the migration of our existing applications to the PC," Slough said.

Powerful Migration and Test Features

By incorporating the following features into X-Designer, IST is giving developers a powerful, easy-to-use tool that will help them quickly develop and deploy the mission-critical applications that are necessary for success in business. -0-

-- XD/Capture: this feature allows developers to migrate existing Motif interfaces into X-Designer without requiring the source code. XD/Capture can reconstruct the applications interface directly into X-Designer. With X-Designer's cross-platform capability to Microsoft Windows, there is now a good migration path for legacy applications.

-- XD/Replay: developers can record all the actions of an application and save them as a high level script. The script can be played back and modified at any time to produce a set of tests, debug the applications, create a demonstrator for the product or automatically capture screen shots for documentation. Not only can scripts be modified, but they can be extended with a rich selection of commands. Comprehensive scripts can easily be developed around a recording, and hooks are provided to tailor the testing capability to users' special needs.

-- AppGuru: this facility allows developers to interactively select components from pre-defined application templates, and to add to the available template list, thus speeding up development and ensuring compliance with the Motif style guide as well as with corporate styles.

-- XD/Help: developers can easily add a basic HTML help system to the application with this facility without worrying whether their customers have a Web browser, since XD/Help can always be used to view the help files. X-Designer's own help uses this. BUT WHY DO PEOPLE WANT/NEED AN HTML HELP SYSTEM?

-- Callback Editing: developers can edit all of their callbacks directly in X-Designer 4.5 using their favorite editor.

-- Multiple Selection: this makes it possible to set resources on multiple widgets.

-- Loose Bindings: with support for loose bindings, X-Designer 4.5 gives the developer the ability to set up general resource specifications that can apply to a whole application, or any sub-part. -0-

In addition, IST has enhanced other X-Designer features such as the pixmap editor, form layout editor, code generation and resource management dialogs. The new features also build upon X-Designer's status as the top-rated Motif GUI builder on the market, known for its rapid prototyping, unmatched speed, and ability to generate standard code without relying on proprietary libraries.

Pricing and Availability

X-Designer 4.5 is available now on Sun Solaris, SunOS, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX and Silicon Graphics IRIX. IBM AIX and Digital UNIX are expected by the end of September with most other platforms soon after. The U.S. list price remains at $3,500 for the first license, including 12 months support and upgrades.

Imperial Software Technology 

Founded in 1982 by members of the University of London Imperial College, IST is a software engineering company recognized internationally for its exceptional technology. Its flagship product, the GUI builder X-Designer, is installed at leading corporations throughout the world, including Motorola, which uses X-Designer through a worldwide corporate license, and NCR, which holds multiple site licenses. IST also provides workbench technology to OEMs and is a leader in the application of formal software engineering methods to high-integrity and safety-critical systems. The company's headquarters is in Reading, United Kingdom, with branches in Cambridge, U.K. and in Palo Alto, Calif. -0-

Note to Editors: X-Designer and the X-Designer logo are registered trademarks, and IST and the IST logo are trademarks of Imperial Software Technology Limited. All other trademarks and registered trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Imperial Software Technology

Derek Lambert, [phone]

[e-mail]

http://www.ist.co.uk

or

Martin Communications

Stephanie Bradley, 415/665-9072

[e-mail]