Component-Ware Consortium Awarded TRP Funding

Burlington, MA--November 11, 1994 -- The Component-Ware Consortium (CWC),
comprising six leading companies in Distributed Object Management, won $4
million in TRP funding to greater facilitate software reuse in the 90's.
The Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) is a federal initiative to
integrate the commercial and defense sectors through cooperative R&D and
commercialization of critical high-technology. I-Kinetics will manage the
CWC, whose membership includes Heuristicrats Research, IONA Technologies,
NetLinks Technology, SunSoft, and Pratt & Whitney.

CWC plans to do for information systems what chip standardization did for
computer manufacturing. The goal of CWC is to package data and
applications as standard, re-usable software components (component-ware).
Component-ware will do this by taking advantage of emerging Distributed
Object Management (DOM) frameworks such as the OMG's CORBA or Microsoft's
OLE/COM. End users will be able to assemble custom applications using
components from anywhere on the network. CWC will submit their
developments to the OMG for possible adoption as industry standards. Total
research and development by members will exceed $30,000,000 over the next
two years.

CWC will advance DOM in the areas of development tools, reliability,
security, and support for existing applications. "The biggest problem that
early adopters are facing is that they have to redevelop their current
systems. CWC will provide component-ware that enables organizations to use
their existing applications, rather than having to tear everything down
and build it from scratch. We will be a catalyst for the emerging DOM
industry"; said Bruce H. Cottman, President of I-Kinetics.

Large distributed information systems that use DOM frameworks, such as
CORBA and OLE/COM, will require component-ware technology. For example,
components used in assembly must be dependable with little or no down
time. For fault-tolerance, end users will assemble reliable applications
by using replicated components. With such a capability, a mission-critical
application will continue to operate if any one copy of a component fails.
Other component-ware benefits include performance improvement through
parallelization, system management, and other kinds of complex
coordination such as database replication.

Each CWC member will be contributing and integrating key component-ware
technologies. IONA, the current CORBA market leader, will extend Orbix(R)
with object groups and fault-tolerant services. For workflow, SunSoft will
continue to enhance its recently announced "publish and subscribe" and
Distributed Objects Everywhere (DOE) technology. "Publish and subscribe"
allows groups of users to implement complex workflow on demand. NetLinks
will develop a new generation of developer tools for inclusion in
ORBitize(TM). Heuristicrats Research will develop a range of security and
data analysis components. Another key technology milestone for the CWC is
"Ready- to-Run"(TM) components. Standard components for Sybase, Oracle,
Ingres are already available from I-Kinetics in the I-Bridge(R) product
line. I- Bridge also offers the ObjectPump(R) for existing data sources
and in-house developed applications. The ObjectPump transforms any UNIX
application or data source into a component. The next releases of the
I-Bridge "Ready-to-Run" components and ObjectPump will incorporate the
latest consortium member contributions in security, fault-tolerance and
workflow services.

CWC component-ware already has its early adopters. NAVSEA will host the
consortium's largest deployment project -- a nation-wide system for
logistics planning and management workflow integration. System
capabilities include: automatic cost estimation, funding and contractor
schedule coordination, functional requirement and engineering design data
comparison, product quality monitoring, and project lifecycle change
management. "NAVSEA is the 5th largest organization in the US and we are
being challenged to re-engineer our way of doing business to an extent not
seen since WW II. Emerging component-ware technology and open standards
will be the critical element in re-engineering our information systems to
meet this challenge"; said John Rivers, Executive Program Manager,
Information Systems Office, Naval Sea Command.

CWC expects to meet the challenges from the wide range of NAVSEA's existing
applications, including: project management, CAD/CAM, database management
systems, spreadsheets, and word-processing. New technologies such as
simulation, object-oriented DBMSs and image processing provide even more
challenges. The second phase of deployment will approach 1000 users and be
the largest component-based information system in the world.

Another component-ware user will be Pratt & Whitney. Pratt & Whitney will
host the development of an "Information Factory " for concurrent
engineering. Rather than utilizing a single physical storage medium such
as a database, the "Information Factory" assembles end- user applications
on demand from engineering product and process definition data components.
An expected by-product of the "Information Factory" is a set of re-usable
components and data standards for engineering and manufacturing systems.

Abraham Hirsch VP Sales & Marketinge
I-Kinetics, Inc.
One New England Executive Park
Burlington, MA 01803
DID:  617-270-1323,  FAX:  617-270-4979
800-I-KINETX (800-454-6389), x223
E-mail:  ahirsch@i-kinetics.com

 ============================================================
 From the  'New Product Information'  Electronic News Service
 on AOL (Keyword = New Products) & Delphi (GO BUSINESS PROD)
 ============================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the 
 company or author mentioned. For additional details, please 
 contact them directly at the address/phone number indicated.
 OmniPage Pro is now used for converting all printed input! 
 ============================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  U.S.A.
 Email: RBakerPC (AOL/Delphi), rbakerpc@delphi.com (Internet)
 ============================================================
