PRESS INFORMIX ANNOUNCES NEXT-GENERATION GRAPHICAL, OBJECT-ORIENTED, CLIENT/SERVER DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

INFORMIX ANNOUNCES NEXT-GENERATION GRAPHICAL, OBJECT-ORIENTED, CLIENT/SERVER DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT INFORMIX-NewEra Builds on Success of INFORMIX-4GL, Enables Creation of Mission-Critical, Enterprisewide, Client/Server Applications TAMPA, Fla., (July 12, 1994) -- Informix Software (NASDAQ:IFMX), the leader in parallel processing database technology, today announced at its Worldwide User Conference, INFORMIX(R)-NewEra(TM) version 1.0 for Microsoft(R) Windows(TM), a new open, graphical, object-oriented, client/server development environment for creating mission-critical, enterprisewide database applications. NewEra features a powerful and flexible database application language, productive visual programming tools, support for team-oriented development, reusable class libraries, and flexible application deployment, all within a client/server-ready package that supports open connectivity to Informix and non-Informix relational databases. "Informix pioneered the concept of using 4GLs to build complex, mission-critical database applications, and INFORMIX-4GL is currently the number one 4GL for production applications on open systems," said Phil White, chairman and CEO, Informix. "With NewEra, we've leveraged our proven 4GL expertise with object-oriented and graphical technology to offer developers the best of both the object-oriented and traditional application development worlds. NewEra will not only enable mission-critical client/server applications to be developed quickly, easily and graphically, but it is robust enough to support entire enterprisewide client/server environments." New Era Enables True OLTP and Mission-Critical Database Applications Unlike many client/server development tools on the market, NewEra is a second-generation development tool specifically architected for production-level applications that support real-time, mission-critical computing environments. According to the Hurwitz Consulting Group, most of today's client/server tools fall into a category classified as first-generation tools. These tools allow developers to program visually and to easily create great-looking, versatile screens for end-user data access and decision support applications. First-generation client/server tools fall short for production environments because they do not scale to meet growing user requirements, do not support complex functionality and application logic, do not provide the ability to add functionality without rearchitecting the core application, and are not well-suited to the team-based development essential for creating enterprisewide applications. "NewEra is exactly the type of client/server development environment developers need to create production-level applications, " said Judith Hurwitz, president, Hurwitz Consulting Group. "It will provide many advantages over first-generation client/server development tools including the ability to scale applications without impacting performance, the ability to easily extend the functionality of applications without recoding or rearchitecting the application, and the ability to support team development so that large numbers of programmers can coordinate their efforts while sharing the same development and application resources." "NewEra allows us to move to a powerful application development environment that offers easy migration, database independence, and the enhanced productivity of working in a true object-oriented programming environment," said Gary Gagliardi, president, FourGen Software, an early test site for NewEra. NewEra Language Provides Simple, Flexible Migration From 4GL to Object-Oriented Programming At the core of the NewEra development environment is the NewEra Language, a high-level programming language that enables developers to create and customize applications without having to resort to third-generation languages like C or COBOL to create their application logic. This ability is not provided with ordinary scripting languages. NewEra extends the power of a 4GL into the object-oriented world to enable organizations to achieve benefits such as the reuse of application components, the extension of tools and applications through the use of class libraries, and the partitioning of applications across clients and servers. At the same time, NewEra Language enables developers to write applications using traditional or object-oriented methods, which allows them to adopt object-oriented techniques at a pace that is comfortable to them and avoid the productivity gap that often accompanies the introduction of object-oriented technology. The NewEra Language also provides a simple migration path from INFORMIX-4GL applications because those applications and NewEra applications can share the same application logic code. Migrating an existing 4GL application into NewEra requires that only the human interface code be rewritten -- the logic behind the screens can remain the same. Software vendor Concepts Dynamic, Inc. (CDI), which has been testing NewEra, has already benefited from NewEra's ease of migration. CDI has been working with NewEra to migrate its INFORMIX-4GL based applications from a UNIX host/terminal environment to a client/server architecture. "NewEra makes it easy for vendors like CDI to migrate our products to client/server while still supporting our installed base of INFORMIX-4GL customers," said CDI president, Karl Steinle. "NewEra also gives us a technological advantage over our competitors by providing us with a rich, object-oriented programming environment." Visual Programming Tools Enable Rapid, Graphical, Team-Oriented Application Development In addition to NewEra Language, the NewEra development environment features a set of visual programming tools that provide sustainable developer productivity throughout every stage of an application's lifecycle. The Application Builder allows teams of developers to graphically manage the various components of an application including source code files, form files and class libraries, which reside in a repository. The NewEra application builder automatically manages the compiling and linking of the multiple application components minimizing the work required to compile an application. The Window Painter streamlines the time and effort required to build graphical applications. Through a point-and-click and drag-and-drop process, developers can easily define the location of graphical controls, create user menu systems, assign visual attributes and establish links between database tables and columns within a window. A key feature of the Window Painter is the SuperTable control. The SuperTable control streamlines the development process by allowing developers to drag-and-drop SQL-based database tables and columns, and SQL operations such as add, update, delete, and find, into the application window without any programming. Each SuperTable provides 200 methods that control every aspect of database access, visual display, and memory management. Since the programmer may "override" any or all of those methods within NewEra, the SuperTable is a uniquely scalable component that enables developers to create mis