OpenDoc Alpha Shipping on Macintosh, Windows and OS/2

More than 12,000 developers to receive OpenDoc

NEW YORK, NY - June 27, 1994 - at PC Expo - The move toward component
software takes a jump forward with the availability of alpha versions of
OpenDoc for Windows, Macintosh and OS/2. OpenDoc is the open architecture
for building component software supported by independent software vendors.
Component Integration Laboratories, Inc. (CI Labs) announced this week
that IBM Corporation is shipping alpha OpenDoc for OS/2; WordPerfect
Corporation is shipping alpha OpenDoc for Windows. Apple Computer, Inc.
shipped alpha OpenDoc for Macintosh in April.

OpenDoc component software offers increased functionality and flexibility
to users and developers, while protecting current investments in software.
Users will be able to view and edit text, graphics and multi-media content
within documents, without having to invoke separate applications.
Developers will focus on their areas of expertise and begin converting
code for existing application modules into OpenDoc components, delivering
more integrated products with quicker time to market. Organizations will
benefit in strategic ways: re-engineering business processes, mining their
companies information assets, managing work-flow and helping teams be more
productive.

"The trend toward component software is inevitable," says Adrian Rietveld,
President & CEO, WordPerfect Corporation, and OpenDoc is the only true
multi-platform component software model. It provides a superior
architecture for developing component software based on industry
standards, and its technology ensures open access and interoperability. I
firmly believe that networked, component software will become the best
vehicle for delivering highly competitive, custom solutions. That is why
WordPerfect has committed to OpenDoc."

OpenDoc Makes Software Work Together

OpenDoc offers easier manipulation of data and tools for end-users,
customizable applications in heterogeneous environments for information
systems managers, and greater differentiation and competition for software
developers.

Component software opens up new opportunities for developers, explains
Guerrino De Luca, vice president marketing of AppleSoft Division, Apple
Computer, Inc., With OpenDoc, software vendors will be able to offer
frequent component upgrades to their existing products, to quickly meet
their customers needs. Developers can customize packages for a given
company or industry, on their own or by working with other specialized
component vendors, creating new business opportunities among vendors and
channel partners.

OpenDoc Interoperates with Microsoft's OLE 2.0

We are going to deliver bi-directional interoperability, states Mark
Ericson, object architect, WordPerfect Corporation. "Objects developed
today for OLE 2.0 will run in the OpenDoc world, and OpenDoc components
will embed in OLE applications. OpenDoc developers can create new
components or migrate existing applications rapidly, using their existing
code. Their components will have superior performance, ease of use and
interoperability." WordPerfect's OLE interoperability will be available as
part of its OpenDoc SDK for Windows.

Developers of All Sizes Like OpenDoc

"The industrial revolution was facilitated by the ability to interconnect
standard parts. The software world is coming to a similar revolution with
OpenDoc," explains David Pollak, President of spreadsheet maker Athena
Design, Inc. "Now, we developers can create and vend parts with the
assurance that they will interoperate flawlessly with parts made by other
vendors, today and in the future."

CI Labs is Vendor-neutral

Cl Labs is a nonprofit industry association whose mission is rapid
implementation of an open component software architecture across all major
industry platforms. CI Labs adopts, maintains, licenses, and supports
essential component software technologies. CI Labs will provide reference
source code, technical documentation, example software and validation
services - openly, without non-disclosure requirements. Organizations and
individuals who want to participate in the move to a component software
model are invited to join CI Labs.

CI Labs promotes OpenDoc as a vendor neutral standard. Cliff Reeves,
Director of Object Technology, IBM Corporation, states, "Vendor neutrality
is vital to the success of an infrastructure technology like OpenDoc. If
any one vendor dominates, that company can skew the standard to favor its
platform and the development process can feed information to its own
application developers. With CI Labs' model, we all share the actual
technology, receiving source code not just specifications. This way, CI
Labs members compete on solutions and features that benefit customers,
without using artificial competitive devices such as proprietary file
formats and closed object models.'

About the Technology

OpenDoc incorporates selected technologies developed by the sponsors in
their respective areas of expertise. OpenDoc's Document Level Services
provide the human interfaces, content editors and display aspects of
compound document creation. OpenDoc's Document Level Services also
includes Bento, a persistent object store standard that is currently used
in products on UNIX, Windows and Macintosh platforms.

OpenDoc's Component Level Services provide the facilities that enable
components to work together and the methods for negotiating resources,
such as data exchange and linking. These component level services, based
on the object management of the System Object Model (SOM), provide a more
complete environment in which multiple components can interact with each
other or operate independently in a document. Additional features of
OpenDoc's component level services are their scriptablility,
extensibility, and replaceability. Developers have the ability to extend
the architecture to provide additional functionality, and most of the
services can also be replaced by other existing facilities according to
the developer's requirements.

The System Object Model (SOM) provides OpenDoc's high level of
interoperability among components. SOM, developed by IBM, complies with
the Object Management Group's (OMG) Common Object Request Broker
Architecture (CORBA) specification that makes objects work across
platforms. SOM lets users drag-and-drop objects, by managing all
interactions among the components. IBM originally introduced SOM as part
of the OS/2 operating system. It is now available in the SOM-objects
Developers Tool Kit for OS/2, AIX and Windows platforms. IBM has widely
licensed its SOM-compatible DSOM distributed object request broker. DSOM
will be available soon on all current OpenDoc platforms, extending OpenDoc
component brokering to heterogeneous networks.

The Open Scripting Architecture (OSA), developed by Apple computer, Inc.,
supports scripting across applications and over networks. OSA is not a
scripting language itself; rather, OSA is a standard for the coexistence
of multiple scripting systems. OSA is currently supported by AppleScript
from Apple, Frontier from Userland Software Inc. and QuicKeys from CE
Software. OSA lets IS managers and consultants develop custom solutions
that access existing applications, information and services across
heterogeneous networks.

Component Integration Laboratories Inc (CI Labs)
688 Fourth Ave
San Francisco, CA 94118
415-750-8352

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