InformationWeek

Tuesday, March 11

IBM, Sun, Oracle, And Netscape Look To Corba For Interoperability

Four major Internet hardware and software vendors today announced plans to improve communication and interoperability between their applications and legacy systems by using the Object Management Group's Corba object specifications as well as creating new Corba/ba sed naming and directory services.

IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Netscape Communications announced plans to standardize on common, high/level naming and directory services to achieve this promise of interoperability. These services would allow developers to easily connect heterogeneous applications over the Internet and intranets using the Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP) to communicate.

Interoperability will allow developers to mix products from the four partners to build a heterogeneous enterprise. "We're moving a step forward toward making the Internet as easy to use as the phone system," says Steve MacKay, VP and general manager of Solaris products at Sun, in Mountain View, Calif. "These services will be like adding phone books."

Netscape and Oracle have both licensed Visigenic Corp.'s VisiBroker Object Request Brokers (ORBs), while IBM has its own ORB and Sun has the NEO ORB. To support the new services, IBM says it will update its Visual Age tools, while Netscape plans to enhance its Netscape Open Network Environment. Likewise, Sun will update its Internet Workshop programming tools and WebServer Internet server, and Oracle will upgrade its Network Computing Architecture.

The four companies are aiming to ship products that adhere to the new standards, as well as submit the technology services they develop to the OMG, by year's end.

--Andy Patrizio