The OMG Announces Formal Test and Brand Programs for CORBA; Distributed Object Promotion Group Interoperability Tests and The Open Brand Program for CORBA Guarantee Interoperability.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 1999--

The Object Management Group(TM) (OMG), a consortium dedicated to enterprise integration and instituting distributed computing specifications such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA(R)) and the Unified Modeling Language (UML(TM)), announces the establishment of several test and brand programs for CORBA. The Open Group(TM), a consortium widely recognized around the world for its brand and test programs, has developed The Open Brand Program for CORBA to ensure CORBA compliance among vendors and guarantee out-of-the-box interoperability to their customers and end users. In addition, the Distributed Object Promotion Group (DOPG), a group of computer and software vendors offering distributed object products in Japan, has succeeded in the world's largest Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP) level interoperability test among 14 CORBA products from 10 vendors.

About the Open Brand Program for CORBA

The Open Brand Program for CORBA was developed in response to end-user and vendor demand for interoperability assurance between CORBA 2.1 products. As part of the certification process, software products are passed through rigorous test suites. Successfully tested products receive the X/Open CORBA trademarked logo, guaranteeing out-of-the-box interoperability and portability to customers. The attainment of the Open Brand is a guarantee by vendors that their products adhere to the specification both now and into the future. The Open Brand carries one of the strongest guarantees in the industry.

"Users are attracted to CORBA-conformant products and solutions by the promise of interoperability, and the opportunity to avoid vendor lock-in. The recent announcement of the CORBA Brand Program championed by The Open Group, as well as IIOP-level and Transaction-level interoperability tests run by the Distributed Object Promotion Group in Japan, provides users with an added level of comfort that they are choosing products that will work together," said Steve Garone, Program Director, International Data Corporation.

The CORBA Brand was launched on June 7th with an announcement that Fujitsu Limited's ObjectDirector(R), ThinkOne MICO 2.2.7, and AT&T National Laboratory's omniORB2 were awarded The Open Brand for CORBA. Because of compliance with the CORBA Brand, customers can feel confident that Fujitsu Ltd.'s, MICO/ThinkOne's and AT&T National Laboratory's CORBA implementations will interoperate with other branded ORBs regardless of the vendor or programming language. Within the next month, The Open Group will be revising the brand to conform with CORBA 2.3. By the end of 1999, IONA(R) Technologies headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, plans to certify its Orbix(R) product against this revised CORBA brand.

"At Allied Signal, interoperability and open standards are strategically very important. AlliedSignal's highly successful Six Sigma program is focused on reducing variability in our processes and open standards are an important part of achieving this goal. While one of the reasons we chose a CORBA-based solution was to insure interoperability, it can still be difficult to insure products really support interoperability standards. The result of this uncertainty is increased cycle-time and costs needed to verify interoperability and additional risk for the consumer," said Wayne Haughey, Manager, Data Management & Integrity. "The CORBA brand program and the emergence of other interoperability test programs give users the assurance that branded products are guaranteed to conform to the OMG's specifications -- offering complete out-of-the-box interoperability and flexibility when choosing between product offerings. These programs minimize risk by insuring interoperability and provide real, tangible, and quantifiable value."

About the DOPG Interoperability Tests

In separate but complementary testing, the Distributed Object Promotion Group announced on May 19th, that its Transaction Working Group has verified the transaction level interoperability of four members' products, which implement the CORBA Object Transaction Service (OTS). In addition, the DOPG confirmed that its Interoperability Working Group had accomplished its largest IIOP level interoperability verification test, involving 10 vendors' CORBA products.

The Transaction test verified interoperability using the Object Transaction Services 2-phase commit (2PC) protocol. This is the first test to verify interoperability of products based on the CORBA Transaction Service using 2-phase commit protocol including recovery cases, among multiple vendors. The products that passed the testing were Fujitsu's ObjectDirector(R) , Hitachi's TPBroker, NEC's WebOTX, and Nihon Unisys' SYSTEM Nu. The other test was the IIOP level interoperability verification test was conducted among 10 vendors using test programs written in C++ and the Java programming language. This is the world's largest test to prove the interoperability of CORBA-based products, not only in terms of the number of companies, or the number of products verified, but also the number of combinations tested. The products that passed the IIOP level interoperability test were: BEA's Weblogic Enterprise, Fujitsu's INTERSTAGE, Hitachi's TPBroker, IBM's WebSphere Application Server, NEC's WebOTX, Unisys' SYSTEM Nu, Oracle's Oracle8I, Oracle Application Server 4.0, Sun's Java 2, TIBCO's TIB/ObjectBus, and TIS/NEC's Orbix.

"Software systems vendors in and around the Enterprise Resource Planning world are transitioning away from offering all-inclusive product suites, to providing clients with opportunities to integrate a collection of solutions that directly address their business needs. This change is made possible through reliable integration strategies, common standards and design policies. The CORBA brand program and interoperability testing programs give vendors, integrators, and customers an added ability to objectively assess how 'integration ready' systems really are," explained Rob Mickley Principal Architect, CYBORG Systems, Inc., a leading software vendor and solutions provider for Human Resources and Payroll.

"Interoperability between CORBA products has been proven over and over since 1995, based on conformance with the open, neutral CORBA specification. These new testing and branding efforts strengthen that promise by giving end-users the proof they need -- and the leverage they want -- to depend on CORBA in the enterprise," commented Richard Soley, Chairman and CEO of the Object Management Group.

About OMG

With the support of its membership of software vendors, software developers and end users, the OMG's CORBA is "The Middleware That's Everywhere(TM)." Since 1989, the OMG has been "Setting The Standards For Distributed Computing(TM)" through its mission to promote the theory and practice of object technology for the development of distributed computing systems. The goal is to provide a common architectural framework for object oriented applications based on widely available interface specifications. The OMG is headquartered in Framingham, MA, USA and has international marketing offices in Bahrain, Brazil, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, India and the UK, along with a healthcare representative in Pelham, AL, USA and a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC, USA. Additionally, the OMG is a sponsor of Ziff-Davis Trade Shows and Conferences in this technology area.

For information on joining the OMG or additional information, please contact OMG headquarters by phone at [phone], by fax at [phone], or by email at [e-mail]. The OMG provides current information and services for Distributed Object Computing through The Information Brokerage(R) on the World Wide Web at www.omg.org and at www.corba.org.

About The Open Group

The Open Group is committed to delivering greater business efficiency by bringing together buyers and suppliers of information systems to lower the cost and risks associated with integrating new technology across the enterprise. The Open Group ensures that multi-vendor information technology matches the demands and needs of customers. This is achieved through the development and deployment of frameworks, polices, best practices and standards in pursuit of the group's IT DialTone vision --- the concept of making all technology as open and accessible as using a telephone. By leveraging the expertise of its sponsors - Compaq, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, IBM, NCR, Siemens, Sun - and other members comprising leading software companies, Fortune 500 users and government departments, The Open Group is well on its way to achieving the IT Dialtone vision. Embracing the maxim: "we can do so much more together than alone". The Open Group is helping its members to stay ahead in the race to use technology to gain competitive advantage. For more information on The Open Group, see www.opengroup.org.

About DOPG

The Distributed Object Promotion Group was established in October 1997 as a group of computer and software vendors providing distributed object-oriented products in Japan. The main object of DOPG is to promote distributed object technology and t verify inter-connectivity of the member companies' products in Japan. Currently 14 companies are it's members: BEA Systems Japan, Ltd., Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi, Ltd., IBM Japan, Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp, NEC Corporation, Nihon Unisys, Ltd., OGIS-RI (Osaka Gas Information System Research Institute Company, Ltd.), TIBCO Inc., Toshiba Corporation, Toyo Information Systems Co. Ltd. Its activities include the Distributed Object Technology Forum, Object World Japan, the Java Computing Expo '98, and Oracle Open World '98.

Note to editors: CORBA(R), The Information Brokerage(R), CORBA Academy(R), and the Object Management Group logo(R) are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group. OMG(TM), Object Management Group(TM), the CORBA Logo(TM), ORB(TM), Object Request Broker(TM), the CORBA Academy logo(TM) IIOP(TM), XMI(TM), MOF(TM), OMG Interface Definition Language(TM), IDL(TM), CORBAservices(TM), CORBAfacilities(TM), CORBAmed(TM), CORBAnet(TM), UML(TM), the UML Cube Logo(TM), and Unified Modeling Language(TM) are trademarks of the Object Management Group. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.