Recent Press Release: Developer/2000 Release 1.2

ORACLE ANNOUNCES NEW FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY FOR SECOND GENERATION, CLIENT/SERVER DEVELOPERS Oracle's Developer/2000 Release 1.2 Delivers Advanced Technology to All Users in All Countries on All Platforms for All Databases Computer-Based Training and Cue Cards Reduce Learning Curve and Increase Productivity Gains PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 19, 1995-International Oracle Users Week (IOUW)-Oracle Corp. today announced Developer/2000 Release 1.2, the latest version of its industry-leading tool for client/server development. Capping a two-year effort by more than 200 engineers, this release delivers on Oracle's vision for client/server application development by supporting the most advanced technology on the market including cross-platform portability and heterogeneous database support. These new features complement the second generation functionality-drag-and-drop application partitioning and unparalleled scalability performance-which Oracle delivered with the previous release of Developer/2000. "This new release of Developer/2000 provides power and ease of use never before available to client/server developers," said Sohaib Abbasi, senior vice president of Oracle's Tools and Groupware. "With Developer/2000 Release 1.2, organizations finally have a toolset with the openness, portability, scalability, and ease of use necessary to build applications with unprecedented productivity from the workgroup to the enterprise." Cross-Platform Portability and Universal Database Support With Developer/2000 Release 1.2, Oracle builds on the company's leadership in the area of cross-platform portability. Developer/2000 is the only tool on the market that empowers developers working in virtually any operating environment-Windows, UNIX (Motif and character mode), VMS (Motif and character mode), Macintosh 680x0 or Power Macintosh-to leverage the ease of use and advanced functionality of a second generation tool. Oracle has demonstrated its ability to excel in the area of cross-platform development with its first generation client/server tool set which has been available to customers for more than a year. In addition to delivering the tightest integration on the market with Oracle7 and Oracle Rdb, Developer/2000 users can also access data stored in other databases. With Release 1.2 of Developer/2000, Oracle delivers custom open database connectivity (ODBC) drivers that were developed for Oracle by INTERSOLV to be bundled with Developer/2000. These drivers provide Developer/2000 users with transparent access to Sybase and Informix databases and are free of charge to Oracle customers. Access to Tandem systems is also provided to Developer/2000 users via Tandem's high-performance ODBC driver. Microsoft's SQL Server and Access databases can be reached via Oracle's generic ODBC drivers. Developer/2000 also transparently accesses data stored in CA-OpenIngres and DB2 databases, as well as IBM's APPC and DRDA for accessing data from legacy systems via the Oracle Open Gateway family. All data appears as though it resides in a local Oracle7 database, so a developer does not need to know the physical location or source of the data being accessed and can retrieve the data without leaving the Developer/2000 environment. Enterprise Power, Workgroup Ease of Use Developer/2000 Release 1.2 delivers new features designed to empower workgroup developers with the ability to leverage the robust functionality of an enterprise development tool. By employing the industry's most advanced Computer-Based Training (CBT) techniques, new users of Developer/2000 can learn to build sophisticated applications in just two hours. In addition, Developer/2000 now offers "cue cards," providing users with hints and tips to employ advanced techniques which empower workgroup developers to scale up for departmental deployment. The cue cards in Developer/2000 deliver "just in time" training for developers and walk the user through a short series of steps to quickly deliver additional developer productivity. More than 100 tasks are documented through the comprehensive cue cards, which have been tested with dozens of novice users for ease of use and effectiveness in Oracle's Product Usability Laboratory. A series of portable, reusable objects including business graphics, a spell-checking facility, tab control, text editor and formatter, spin control and object navigator are also included to boost productivity at every level of proficiency. With this release of Developer/2000, Oracle delivers the first client/server development tool on the market to provided full international language support. In addition to all the European languages, client/server developers can now easily develop applications in multibyte and Semitic languages including Chinese, Korean, Thai, Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew. Developer/2000 uses a multilingual architecture which allows development of a single application that can be deployed in any language. In addition, Oracle delivers full documentation, support and consulting to span these languages. Pricing and Availability Developer/2000 Release 1.2 is scheduled to be available Oct. 1 for Windows 3.1, Windows NT WOW and Win-OS/2; Oct. 31 for PowerMac; Nov. 15 for UNIX (Motif and character mode), and VMS (Motif and character mode); and Nov. 30 for Macintosh 680x02. Developer/2000 for Windows 95, logo-certified to fully support Windows 95, is scheduled to be available at the end of this calendar year. Pricing for Windows is $3,995 per developer in the United States with no runtime fees for deployment. Pricing on other platforms will be announced prior to their availability. Free upgrades are available to all supported Developer/2000 and prior Oracle tools customers. Developer/2000 was the first client/server development tool to deliver department to enterprise scalability and the only tool on the market which uses the same programming language (PL/SQL) on both the client and server. Scalable deployment is a reality with Developer/2000 because of several core strengths found in the product including drag-and-drop application partitioning, object-orientation, team productivity and tight integration with Oracle's Designer/2000, the only second generation client/server modeling tool available today. Developer/2000 Release 1.2 adds new capabilities to extend its scalability down to the workgroup as well as up the enterprise to an even larger numbers of users than ever before. Oracle Corp., a $3 billion company, is the world's largest supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest software company. The company offers its database, tools and application products along with related consulting, education and support services, in more than 90 countries around the world. For more information about Oracle, please call (415) 506-7000. Oracle's World Wide Web address is http://www.oracle.com/. -- -- Dennis Moore, Oracle Corp. dbmoore@oracle.com <- Office (preferred for e-mail) dbmoore@netcom.com <- Home (preferred for living ;-)