InformationWeek

The Object Advantage

Eager to reap the benefits, and convinced about the technology, developers are moving beyond experimentation

After a long learning and experimentation curve, technology managers will start employing object-oriented software for mission-critical systems in 1995. "Companies are getting people up and running with object technology," says Jeff Jurvis, an object designer at IDS Financial Services, a division of American Express Co. in Minneapolis.

Indeed, having built their prototypes, corporate IS departments will put their object-orient ed applications into production. Over the next 12 months, says Tom Moldauer, a partner at Andersen Consulting in Chicago, "developers will move out of the experimentation stage, from using objects to solve small problems to using objects to solve large problems."

What's more, for users deciding to take the plunge into object tools, 1995 will see new players such as Taligent Inc., which is bankrolled by Apple Computer, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, bring product to market.

"Taligent is an enormous project," says Allan Wolff, a developer in the software division of consultancy Corporate Computing Inc. in Chicago. "The companies have an enormous group of programmers on this, and they're trying to do something very ambitious."

Technically Far Ahead
But the object market doesn't lack for ambitious technology. "We're so far ahead technically, we could send our engineers on a four-year vacation and still be ahead," says Steve Jobs, chairman of Next Inc., which markets an object programmin g environment.

Object-oriented programming allows developers to use discrete parcels of code, called objects, to build applications. These can then be distributed and reused across an enterprise. Object tools are especially appealing to developers who use procedural programming languages, such as Cobol or C. These languages require the developer to create an application by manually programming line after line of code in a sequential fashion, a time-consuming effort. "Object-oriented programming makes it easier to work in a group, because one person builds an object that another can use, without that person having to know the object's source code," explains Wolff.

Smalltalk was one of the first object-oriented languages. Developed at the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) labs in the 1960s, Smalltalk programming tools now are marketed by ParcPlace, Digitalk, and IBM.

Steve Jobs' Next was one of the first companies to market a mainstream object-oriented operating system, NextStep, with the Next co mputer in the 1980s. Since then, Next has discontinued its hardware line and licensed its object-oriented programming environment, OpenStep, to Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems.

SunSoft, a division of Sun Microsystems, is developing Project DOE (Distributed Objects Everywhere). SunSoft utilizes the OpenStep technology it licensed from Next to build an object environment on top of Solaris, Sun's Unix operating system. Brian Kroll, director of marketing for objects at SunSoft, says Project DOE will be released before the summer.

IBM will use the technology it gains from Taligent to layer object technology on top of its OS/2 operating system to produce WorkPlace OS, its object-oriented operating system. Joe Guglielmi, Taligent's president and CEO, says the 2-1/2-year-old company will ship a test version of CommonPoint, its object-oriented programming environment, during the first quarter.

Here It Comes
Microsoft Corp. intends to be a major player in objec t technology, too. The software giant already has gained significant ground with OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), its desktop compound-document technology. "Technology like OLE will help people write applications in an object-oriented way," says Rich Tong, general manager for Microsoft's business systems division. But the company is running behind on the delivery schedule for Cairo, the code-name for its object-oriented operating system. Cairo layers an object-based file system on top of a Windows NT high- end operating system. Microsoft has backpedaled on its promise to deliver Cairo this year, and few developers expect to see a fully functional Cairo until well into 1996.

That puts Microsoft behind the curve. Andersen's Moldauer believes many object developers will convert their prototype applications to production applications this year. "What's even more important is that developers will find themselves building successful object applications, which will accelerate use of object technology in corpor ations," he adds.

Matt Rosen, assistant director for technical services at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, Calif., says developers will take the object-oriented plunge into production applications, despite worries about the risks involved with leading-edge technology.

San Joaquin made its move in March when it went into production with its student registration system in March. "We have our student information in object applications," says Rosen. "It was scary when we went live with it because we're not used to being pioneers. But judging by the increased productivity of our developers, it was worth the risk."

Another factor that will increase the use of object technology is the development of standards.

One big help is the work of the Object Management Group (OMG) in Framingham, Mass. OMG's Corba (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) standard is a detailed architecture that allows objects created in different object environments to interact with one another. This year, the OMG will add several significant specifications to Corba, such as that for sending objects over a network.

Developers applaud the effort. "It's important for standards to solidify," says Andersen's Moldauer. "We have to be able to plug our objects into any environment."

With significant new technology being delivered, and standards being set, 1995 is the year object technology goes mainstream.

Photo: Dan Brinzac

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