OBJECTSTORE SUPPORTS MAINSTREAM ENTERPRISE DATABASE REQUIREMENTS -- A WINNING COMBO OF UNPRECEDENTED SPEED, SCALABILITY AND AVAILABILITY.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 1995--Object Design, Inc. today announced ObjectStore 4.0, the industry's most mature, full-featured object database designed for customers building distributed, client-server applications.

ObjectStore 4.0 provides customers with standard database requirements such as security and availability, while also giving them a major increase in performance and scalability. Additionally, with ObjectStore, users can handle sophisticated data models which are commonplace in today's mainstream environments. As a result, users benefit by achieving faster, more flexible application development that is both easy to administer and deploy across multiple client/server systems.

Evolutionary Technologies, Inc., a major player in the rapidly expanding data warehouse arena is incorporating ObjectStore 4.0 into its EXTRACT Tool Suite -- products used to migrate and format data between host databases or mainframes, and data warehouses on a network. ObjectStore stores and manages the correspondences between the date sources and transformations that are accessed by the end user.

"Moving our EXTRACT Tool Suite product onto an object-oriented database was a major strategic decision for us," said Scott Williams, vice president of development of Evolutionary Technologies, Inc. "We chose ObjectStore because it best fit our needs for high scalability and version control -- capabilities critical to our customers, particularly those building and managing enterprise data warehouses."

"Our continued success depends on our ability to listen to our users, react quickly, and satisfy mainstream requirements that are not being addressed by traditional means," said Kenneth E. Marshall, president and CEO of Object Design. "Customers want to put our database to work for them to tap the high performance of ObjectStore, and at the same time, be assured of the features they expect from a database. We listened, responded, and made it happen with our new release."

ObjectStore 4.0 is the centerpiece of Object Design's ObjectStore Component Architecture (OCA), an open framework of tools and technologies allowing ObjectStore to interoperate with relational databases and tools. OCA allows customers to use ObjectStore while protecting investments in traditional data management technologies. (See separate press release for additional details.)

"With this release we've identified the database that pushes the limits of even the frenetic financial services environment with the merger of ObjectStore's new reliability and scalability features, along with its reputable rapid fire performance," said Shekar Gunaseharan, president of Indus Consultancy, a leading systems integrator to the financial community. "The database steps up the speed of anything we've seen before. ObjectStore gives our customers an edge on their competition in a business where the rise or fall of their organization is determined by time, accuracy and cost."

NEW OBJECTSTORE 4.0 FEATURES

Support for large scale applications.

The following features in ObjectStore 4.0 have been added/enhanced to support large scale applications in distributed environments:

-- Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC) -- ObjectStore 4.0 provides data access to large numbers of concurrent users. MVCC enables a higher level of database concurrency for applications by allowing multiple readers and writers to access shared data without conflicting with each other.

-- SMP/Asynchronous I/O -- ObjectStore 4.0 is the only object database server with a multi-threaded architecture, permitting it to take advantage of threading capabilities found in modern operating systems. The SMP/Asynchronous I/O capability increases the overall throughput of the database system, allowing it to scale to meet the exacting demands of a large scale, multi-user configuration.

-- Collections Enhancements -- ObjectStore 4.0 offers significant enhancements to the powerful collections and query facility. Collections manage extensions of related objects which provide users with increased flexibility and speed in accessing data stored in ObjectStore 4.0. The collections enhancements made to ObjectStore allow users to more efficiently store large numbers of objects and perform complex queries on collections of objects.

-- Thread Safety -- Additional thread support in ObjectStore 4.0 makes it easier for developers to build multi-threaded applications. ObjectStore automatically performs inter-thread locking needed to serialize client interactions with the server.

Reliability and Security

ObjectStore 4.0 also includes increased reliability and security capabilities, improving its performance in distributed computing environments.

-- Archive Logging -- Archive logging enhances ObjectStore's support for highly reliable, non-stop operations in mission critical environments. By automatically archiving new data added to the database between backups, ObjectStore 4.0 helps prevent loss of data should media failure or database corruption occur. With archive logging, users are ensured a high level of data integrity, and are guaranteed greater recovery capabilities for their industrial strength applications.

-- Distributed Backup -- ObjectStore 4.0 offers improved on-line backup capabilities, allowing users to conduct complete transaction-consistent backups across multiple ObjectStore servers. The distributed backup feature gives users continuous access to the database and simplifies administration.

-- Security Enhancements -- For strategic, enterprise-wide applications, security is critical. ObjectStore's improved security allows users to customize database access by asserting access privileges for higher granularities of control over the data. Expanding the security model gives users more flexibility and control over database access.

Heterogeneous Computing

ObjectStore 4.0 continues to provide the best support for interoperability across heterogeneous platforms.

-- Compiler Heterogeneity -- ObjectStore 4.0 increases support to heterogeneous environments by providing interoperability among clients using different compilers. And, ObjectStore is the only object database that accomplishes compiler interoperability without compromising its tight integration with, and support of C++. With the number of ObjectStore users working on multiple hardware platforms, compiler heterogeneity is a critical feature for deploying applications across a distributed enterprise.

Availability and Pricing

ObjectStore 4.0 will be available in July, 1995 through Object Design's direct sales force. Initially offered for the Sun UNIX environment, Windows NT and HP, ObjectStore 4.0 will be made available for virtually all major UNIX platforms, as well as OS/2 and Microsoft Windows 3.1 Win 32s.

Packages start at $3,800, depending on the platform, number of customer seats and sites for which licenses are provided. Runtime license pricing also is available for independent software vendors and development organizations providing applications to both internal and external users.

Object Design, Inc., the leader in bringing objects to the database market, delivers real world solutions to organizations in the telecommunications, manufacturing and financial service industries. Object Design holds the largest share of the ODBMS market, according to International Data Corp., and was recently ranked number one in Inc. Magazine's annual Inc. 500 listing of the nation's fastest growing private companies. Headquartered in Burlington, Mass., Object Design maintains a development facility in San Mateo, Calif., sales offices throughout the U.S. and sells directly to end users, as well as through a worldwide network of distributors. International subsidiaries include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and Japan.

CONTACT: Object Design, Inc.

Carol Wentworth, 617/674-5177

Luisa Zauli, 617/674-5162