Metaserver Inc., maker of a wizard-based application server that enables distributed system resources to be more easily linked to form a virtual application, has simplified the products visual-programming tools.

Customer Tony Glowacki, president of Bethesda, Md.

based WealthEngine.com, says Metaserver 3.0, which is scheduled to ship next week, provides a much smoother model-based development environment than the older version.

"The 3.0 modeling environment is a nicer tool. It's more sophisticated and more like your Visual Basic [rapid-application-development tool]," Glowacki says. It's easier to interact with the update, and "easier for the end user to learn how to use and get a faster return on investment," he says.

WealthEngine gives its customers, who are primarily nonprofit organizations, Web access to data about potential donors. The company uses Metaserver to present data from a variety of sources, including internal Oracle databases and external XML links to other data-gathering companies.

Metaserver's eponymously named virtual application server delegates processing to designated networked computers. Instead of hosting application processing, the server coordinates it, providing parallel and distributed processing, fault tolerance, load balancing, failover, automatic restart, and the ability to dynamically reconfigure an application.

The latest version of the application server's visual-programming tool is written in Java and provides a modeling environment that can now reflect data flows between apps, as well as business-process integration, according to company execs.

Metaserver 3.0, which will run on Unix or Windows NT and 2000, will sell for an average price of $300,000 to $400,000.