Item 1449187 93/06/15 15:46 From: CONRAD_GEIGER@NEXT.COM@INET# Internet Gateway Subject: NeXT Announces Object-Oriented Software for Enterprise-wide Client/Server Computing FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Karen Logsdon NeXT Computer, Inc. 415/780-3786 or Marilyn Kilinski Ketchum Public Relations 212/536-8865 NEXT ANNOUNCES OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE FOR ENTERPRISE-WIDE CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING SAN FRANCISCO, CA - June 15, 1993 - NeXT Computer, Inc. today announced its strategy for enabling organizations to deploy object-oriented solutions on an enterprise-wide basis. NeXT announced a new product, Portable Distributed Objects (PDO). Using PDO, NeXT will make client/server computing easier by providing a distributed object-oriented foundation. The goal of PDO is to provide an object-oriented foundation to client/server computing and enable customers to build company-wide custom applications using objects across the enterprise. PDO will also increase interoperability between NEXTSTEP clients and server environments, and between NEXTSTEP and emerging distributed computing and object-oriented standards. PDO will further NEXTSTEP's leading position as a provider of object-oriented solutions. Using PDO, organizations can build financial, customer service, network management and other complex systems in which many computers provide specialized services, such as compute intensive servers, to a single application. With PDO, developers can encapsulate complex network computing resources in reusable software objects which developers can easily use to build sophisticated applications. These applications then enjoy all of the rapid time to market, ease of use and ease of modification benefits provided by NEXTSTEP. "PDO allows us to make client-server computing easier and provide our customers with increased benefits such as reducing time to market for enterprise-wide custom applications," said Steven P. Jobs, chairman and CEO of NeXT. "We are working with our industry partners, Hewlett-Packard and Data General to develop and promote the strategic advantages of this product which allows developers to create NEXTSTEP applications having the ability to scale and run as fast as the fastest computer on the network." Object-oriented productivity for enterprise computing Currently, NEXTSTEP, NeXT's object-oriented software runs on industry-standard Intel 486- and Pentium-based PCs and delivers support for distributed, object- oriented programming across networks of NEXTSTEP-based computers. Through NEXTSTEP's distributed object technology, objects cannot only transparently send messages to other objects running within the same application or on the same machine, but also send messages to objects hosted on other computers in the network. With NEXTSTEP's new PDO technology, developers can now provide the benefits of an object-oriented approach to distributed computing throughout a heterogeneous network. A trading system, for example, could include a custom analytic object running on the fastest server on the network, enabling traders with NEXTSTEP client systems to improve their ability to make real-time buy/sell decisions. "PDO brings us the best of both worlds for servers," according to John Keazirian, executive vice president at Chicago Research & Trading Group, Ltd. (CRT). "It allows us to extend the rapid development environment beyond the NEXTSTEP client and lets server machines continue to offer the high range of availability, data integrity, network management tools, process controls and security capabilities that our business requires." "Our clients have told us that PDO is key to their enterprise computing strategy," said Ronald L. Skates, president and chief executive officer of Data General. "The object oriented benefits of NEXTSTEP and PDO allow users to exploit the power of Data General's AViiON servers in custom distributed client/server applications." PDO benefits users and developers For users, PDO reduces the time to market for complex custom applications, provides customers with applications that can be easily modified to meet their needs. It also enables them to take advantage of network-based third-party ObjectWare which is reusable network-based objects created for critical, computational, data or server intensive tasks such as telecommunications, data feed distribution, custom analytics, multimedia distribution and rendering. For developers, PDO provides a mechanism for extending NEXTSTEP's powerful object-oriented metaphor to include server-based computational resources. PDO enables developers to create objects which hide the complexity of accessing those network resources, allowing users of the objects to concentrate on their application, and not distributed computing details. Developing products to meet industry standards A key component of the PDO strategy is openness and adherence to existing and emerging industry computing standards, such as OMG's CORBA (Common Object Request Broker), DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) and DME (Distributed Management Environment). Currently, NeXT's intention is to provide customers with a heterogeneous distributed object solution today and work with partners to define PDO's interoperability with various standards as they emerge. Availability PDO on HP and DG platforms is expected to be available by the end of 1993. Pricing will be announced upon release. NeXT Computer, Inc. NeXT develops and markets the award-winning NEXTSTEP object-oriented software for industry-standard computer architectures. Customers use NEXTSTEP to develop and deploy custom client/server applications, using both custom and shrink-wrapped software. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, and with offices throughout the world, NeXT serves customers requiring enterprise- wide, object-oriented productivity environments. # # # # NeXT, the NeXT logo and NEXTSTEP are registered trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners. =END=