IBM Announces New Windows API Extensions for OS/2 Warp

Showcases Technologies to Help Developers Create Multi-Platform
Applications

NEW ORLEANS, May 22, 1995 -- As part of its ongoing campaign to reduce
software developers' costs and give them opportunities to capitalize on
the rapidly growing OS/2 market, IBM announced its new Developer API
Extensions at The 1995 IBM Technical Interchange conference here today.
The company also showcased a range of technologies and tools that will
allow ISVs to bring multiple-platform applications to market quickly and
easily.

"Application developers are forced to make tough choices," said John W.
Thompson, general manager, IBM Marketing and Solution Developer Programs
in his keynote address to 4,000 software vendors and corporate developers.
"If they bet their business on one operating system platform, they may
limit their market opportunity. But supporting multiple platforms means
maintaining separate code bases at significant expense. Today we're
showing IBM's unequivocal commitment to help software developers increase
their market opportunities while decreasing risk, by giving them ways to
develop and manage common source code across multiple platforms."

IBM's growing set of developer tools and technologies includes its new IBM
Developer API Extensions, SMART, Hyperwise, VisualAge C++, the IBM Open
Class Library and OpenDoc.

Developer API Extensions

The IBM Developer API Extensions announced today enhance the portability of
32-bit Windows applications to OS/2 Warp, helping software developers
deliver their applications across PC operating systems including Warp,
Windows 3.1, Windows NT and Windows 95. The Developer API Extensions are
extensions to the OS/2 Warp interfaces, designed to make existing
investments in Win32 APIs portable to OS/2 Warp.

The Developer API Extensions are comprised of a subset of over 700 APIs and
300 messages that are consistent with Win32 APIs and messages. The subset
includes the most frequently used Win32 APIs, and was chosen based on the
analysis of more than nine million lines of source code from a variety of
popular Windows applications. Windows applications that use the APIs
defined in the Developer API Extensions can be recompiled to produce
functionally equivalent OS/2 Warp applications.

Selected software vendors will begin limited alpha testing of the Developer
API Extensions next week. The extensions will be available for broad beta
testing this summer, and IBM expects them to be generally available by the
end of the year. The Developer API Extensions will eventually be shipped
as part of the base OS/2 Warp operating system.

"With our Developer API Extensions as the solution for migrating existing
Windows applications, IBM's object-oriented VisualAge family of
application development tools represents our long-term commitment to
helping developers succeed, by enabling them to reach multiple, growing
market segments from a single development environment," said John
Swainson, IBM vice president of application development solutions. "The
future application software market leaders will be companies that leverage
their migration investments into competitive advantage by exploiting
object technology in the form of portable and interoperable class
libraries and frameworks."

VisualAge C++ and IBM Open Class Library

IBM's award-winning VisualAge C++ and object-oriented IBM Open Class
Library, currently in beta testing on OS/2, will be made available on
Windows later this year. VisualAge C++ is a powerful development
environment that allows developers to visually build parts and then
combine these parts to construct programs. VisualAge C++ and IBM Open
Class Library are part of a broad set of IBM tools that already gives
developers a high degree of portability between many platforms, including
AIX, OS/400, MVS, and Sun Solaris. Support for PowerMac and HP-UX is also
planned to round out the tools set that customers and independent software
vendors have requested. Starting with VisualAge C++ for OS/2, which will
be generally available in June, developers will be able to realize the
highest degree of portability available with C++.

OpenDoc Support in VisualAge C++

OpenDoc is a compound document architecture that enables the development of
object-oriented, cross-platform application components called OpenDoc
parts. OpenDoc will be supported across OS/2 Warp, Windows, Macintosh, and
UNIX (AIX). For developers who have already invested in the proprietary
OLE or Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) technologies, IBM intends to
provide utilities, tools and services to assist with conversion and source
code creation for the more open, cross-platform OpenDoc and IBM Open
Class.

"Software developers are investing heavily in migration from 16-bit to
32-bit operating systems," said Jed Harris, president of Component
Integration Laboratories (CI Labs). "With everyone focused on exploiting
32-bit APIs and basic GUI capabilities, these will soon be insufficient to
make their applications competitive. To increase application
differentiation, leading vendors are moving toward software components.
IBM's open software strategy, with its focus on object technology and
component reuse and integration, represents a compelling source of
differentiation for software developers."

SMART

The Source Migration Analysis Reporting Toolset (SMART), a product of OneUp
Corporation, is a set of tools that help programmers readily convert their
Windows applications to OS/2. SMART analyzes existing Windows code (16-bit
or 32-bit) and OS/2 code (16-bit), sizes the conversion effort, and
automatically converts the majority of the code to 32-bit OS/2 Warp. When
used with the Developer API Extensions, SMART will indicate which parts of
a Win32 application use the API Extensions and can be recompiled for OS/2
Warp. It will also analyze the rest of the application and make
recommendations for the remainder of the development effort. IBM licenses
SMART and makes it available to developers via the IBM Developer
Connection CD-ROM.

Hyperwise

IBM's Hyperwise is a productivity tool that allows developers to use OS/2
Warp as their help development platform, regardless of the platform on
which their applications will run. It is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get
editor (WYSIWYG) for creating the help portion of applications and assists
in moving Windows help to OS/2 Warp. Hyperwise includes a drag-and-drop
capability to link text, audio, video and graphics and allows users to
author text once and read it on OS/2 Warp, the Internet and Windows 3.1.

IBM news releases are available on the Internet, via the IBM Home Page at
http://www.ibm.com

The IBM Fax Information Service allows you to receive facsimiles of prior
IBM product press releases. Dial 1-800-IBM-4FAX and enter "99" at the
voice menu.

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