FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Karen Logsdon NeXT Computer, Inc. 415/780-3786 NeXT SHIPS PDO PORTABLE DISTRIBUTED OBJECTS FOR HP 9000 SERVERS Customers gain state-of-the-art desktop to data center solution LAS VEGAS November 15, 1993 NeXT Computer, Inc. today announced it is shipping PDO Portable Distributed Objects for Hewlett-Packard Company's HP 9000 servers. PDO is the first product to be released from the companies' recently announced Object 7 Enterprise relationship. Object 7 Enterprise combines NEXTSTEP, NeXT's object-oriented software, with the HP 9000 product family, providing a scalable solution for client/server development based on a common object-oriented framework. NeXT also announces that it plans to ship NetInfo for HP-UX in the coming month as the second product from Object 7 Enterprise. Developed by NeXT and Xedoc, the leading portable NetInfo consulting group, NetInfo for HP-UX is a flexible and extensible database system for distributed system and network administration. PDO is the first industry product to provide a heterogeneous client/server framework based on objects, and does so by extending the same seamless object model and messaging architecture that NEXTSTEP customers already use for local and distributed objects. NeXT's PDO for HP 9000 business servers running HP-UX 9.0 provides a framework for developing and deploying object-oriented applications across the enterprise, delivering state-of-the-art desktop to data center solutions. "NeXT continues to lead the industry in object-oriented solutions by extending its object model and object messaging architecture to server environments with PDO," said Steven P. Jobs, Chairman and CEO of NeXT. "We are building the foundation upon which customers can quickly and easily develop sophisticated client/server applications that scale to meet the needs of the enterprise, not just small workgroups. We believe providing a uniform and seamless object model in a networked environment is the key to unlocking the benefits of client/server computing." "PDO is a major step in enabling our customers to develop and deploy object-oriented, client-server applications across the enterprise," said Ruann Ernst, marketing director of HP's Financial Services Industry Group. "Customers, especially in the financial services industry, will benefit from the combination of NeXT's advanced object-oriented framework and HP's expertise in desktop to data center products and worldwide service and support." Customers attest to PDO's productivity for enterprise computing With PDO, The First National Bank of Chicago will be better able to take full advantage of their client/server architecture by off-loading compute intensive processes to the computers best suited for the task. "PDO allows us to run our object-oriented applications on the fastest systems available," said Matt Peron, officer at The First National Bank of Chicago. "Our processing demand is increasing rapidly, particularly in the derivatives area, and PDO will enable us to keep up with the demand." "Swiss Bank Corporation plans to use PDO to run theoretical models for trading, enabling traders with NEXTSTEP client systems to improve their ability to make real-time investment decisions. With PDO, the location of the custom analytic object is independent of the application design and deployment," said Dwight Koop, executive director, Swiss Bank Corporation. According to John Keazirian, executive vice president at NationsBanc-CRT, "PDO brings us the best of both worlds for servers because 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." Since PDO extends the object-oriented programming paradigm to heterogeneous servers, developers creating applications in this environment enjoy all of the benefits of object-oriented programming, such as fewer lines of code in development, higher reusability of software and greater maintainability and reliability of software systems while tapping the performance, centrality of data, and other features of high powered enterprise servers. Developing products to meet industry standards Currently, NEXTSTEP, NeXT's object-oriented software, runs on industry-standard Intel 486- and Pentiumb-based PCs and delivers support for distributed, object-oriented programming across networks of NEXTSTEP-based computers. With NEXTSTEP's object technology, objects transparently send messages to other objects running within the same application. NEXTSTEP's distributed object technology allows the same transparent messaging to occur between objects resident in different applications, whether the applications are running on the same machine or across the network. This messaging allows greater reusability of objects, by providing a framework for applications to share common objects within a networked environment. PDO provides even greater reusability of software, by allowing these objects to exist in non-NEXTSTEP environments, such as an HP 9000 series 800 server running the HP-UX operating system. Today, PDO provides interoperability between NEXTSTEP clients and server environments. In the future, PDO will allow interoperability between NEXTSTEP and emerging distributed computing standards, such as OMG's CORBA (Common Object Request Broker) and DCE (Distributed Computing Environment). "As part of the NeXT/HP Object 7 Enterprise initiative to bring object-orientation to enterprise computing, we plan to work together to define a strategy for interoperability at the object level," said Rick Jackson, director of product marketing at NeXT. Pricing and Availability PDO for HP servers as part of the Object7Enterprise suite of solutions is shipping. PDO Release 1.0 for HP-UX 9.0 has tiered pricing based upon HP's server software pricing model. PDO for Departmental Servers is $2,500, for Branch Servers is $5,000 and for Corporate Servers is $10,000. Product DescriptionServer TypeList Price PDO Release 1.0 for HP-UX 9.0HP Workstation Server Model 715 or $2,500 Department Servers725; Series 800 Models F or G Class Server. PDO Release 1.0 for HP-UX 9.0HP Workstation Server Model 735 or $5,000 Branch Servers755; Series 800 Models H or I Class Server. PDO Release 1.0 for HP-UX 9.0HP 9000 Corporate Business Servers.$10,000 Corporate Servers About 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. About HP Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Hewlett-Packard Company is the third-largest computer supplier in the United States, with computer revenue in excess of $12 billion in its 1992 fiscal year. Hewlett-Packard is an international manufacturer of measurement and computation products and systems recognized for excellence in quality and support. The company's products and services are used in industry, business, engineering, science, medicine and education in approximately 110 countries. HP has 94,900 employees and had revenue of $16.4 billion in its 1992 fiscal year. # # # # NeXT, the NeXT logo, NEXTSTEP, PDO, Portable Distributed Objects and the PDO logo are registered trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners. HP-UX is based on and is compatible with USL's UNIX operating system. It also complies with X/Open's XPG4; POSIX 1003.1, 1003.2, 1003.2a; FIPS 151-1; and SVID2 interface specifications. UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System Laboratories Inc. in the US and other countries. X/Open is a trademark of X/Open Company Limited in the UK and other countries.