Editorial Contact: NEWS RELEASE Chorus Systems 6 avenue Gustave Eiffel Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France Mary Etienne +33 (1) 30 64 82 16 mary@chorus.fr for immediate release Chorus Systems Launches CHORUS/COOL ORB Tailored to Distributed, Real-Time Applications Download CHORUS/COOLª ORB On-Line At http://www.chorus.com/ Paris, France -- March 18, 1996 -- Chorus Systems today released an evaluation version of its Object Request Broker, CHORUS/COOLª ORB. This software package provides a standards-based development environment combining OMG's CORBA object-oriented technology with CHORUS componentized operating systems. CHORUS/COOL ORB is particularly tailored to object-oriented real-time distributed applications. Designed in concert with telecommunications customers, CHORUS/COOL is a robust, high performance ORB that gives developers the flexibility to deploy applications on most popular platforms as well as on Chorus operating system environments. Acting as a common Application Programming Interface (API) across hetero-geneous systems, CHORUS/COOL gives developers an easy and efficient productivity tool to integrate distributed, real-time applications for call switching, network management, database access, groupware, multimedia, internet services, distributed processing environments, and process control with object based applications running on popular platforms including Windows NT, SCO OpenServer, Solaris, and SunOS. Developers can download the evaluation copy of CHORUS/COOL ORB in binary executable form for evaluation and trial use at Chorus Systems' World Wide Web site, URL: http://www.chorus.com/. Object-Oriented Technology is Right for Real-Time Object-oriented technology is experiencing explosive growth. Businesses that operate complex embedded systems (e.g. telecommunications, process control, factory automation, multimedia) are building client/server or distributed applications that demand flexible interactions between application and system components. Because software is the roadblock in time-to-market, they are looking to object tools to help them increase productivity, improve quality, and respond quicker to changing user and technology requirements. International Data Corp. found in a recent survey of development practices in US companies, that 68% percent of organizations in the telecommunications industry are building client/server or distributed applications. The same survey showed that these companies reported an average use of C++ that was almost twice that of the next closest industry. Within the telecommunications industry companies, 23.2% of the installed base of applications were written and maintained in C++. The next closest industry was "business and other services" which reported an average of 14%. Traditional computing and software vendors are providing object-oriented packages to meet this growing demand. Independent object-oriented software providers are flourishing. Industry experts predict that revenues generated from object-oriented middleware will grow from $20-40 million in 1995 to in excess of $1 billion by the end of the century. "Telecommunications and other embedded systems developers are using CORBA with extensions as their object strategy since they already extensively use the object-oriented C++ programming language to build applications," says Fred Rehhausser, vice president of marketing at Chorus Systems. "Integrating new services in existing systems using CHORUS/COOL ORB significantly reduces development time. We expect that ORBs will become mandatory within three years as an application layer providing a link between homogeneous and heterogeneous systems." Rehhausser continues, "The integration of OMG/ORB technology with Chorus SystemsÕ componentized operating systems is a unique differentiator for CHORUS/COOL ORB today. By eliminating unnecessary layers of software between the application and the underlying operating system API's, the Chorus solution provides a faster invocation of applications than most of the current implementations of OMG/ORB addressing the general client/server computing market. They are not optimized for the real-time and embedded systems markets which we are specifically addressing with CHORUS/COOL." CHORUS/COOL ORB Product Overview CHORUS/COOL ORB is Chorus' implementation of the Object Management Group's (OMG) Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) specifications. It will evolve in accordance with future OMG standards. The CHORUS/COOL development environment provides IDL programming interfaces over heterogeneous systems, runtime libraries, and an IDL compiler (CHIC) which creates both server and client code. In addition, CHORUS/COOL ORB provides object services such as naming services, synchronization services, group invocation services, node services, and domain services which make it easy to develop and deploy object-oriented applications. Of particular interest is the group invocation service which allows a client to invoke an operation on one or several servers in a transparent manner. The group invocation service provides support for group management including dynamic insertion or deletion of servers in a group. It implements different policies to dispatch a request to servers (broadcast, functional, etc.) and to collect replies (first reply, first exception etc.). Optimized on the CHORUS microkernel, CHORUS/COOL ORB supports different communications protocols such as TCP/IP and CHORUS IPC (Inter-Process Communication). On multi-threaded underlying systems such as CHORUS, Solaris, Windows NT, etc., a thread-safe version of runtime libraries is available. CHORUS/COOL ORB currently supports IDL to C++ mapping. C language mapping will be added in future releases. In addition to CHORUS/ClassiX and CHORUS/Fusion, CHORUS/COOL ORB is also available on a variety of popular host systems including Windows NT, Windows 95, SCO OpenServer 5, Solaris, and SunOS and interoperates across all these platforms. Contact Chorus Systems for information on support for versions of different C++ compilers. A non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, license to use the evaluation copy of the software in binary executable form for evaluation and trial use is available on-line at Chorus Systems' World Wide Web site, URL: http://www.chorus.com/. CHORUS/COOL ORB was designed by Chorus Systems in concert with France Telecom, SEPT, and the European Union's Esprit Projects Commandos (No. 2071), ISA (No. 2267) and Ouverture (No. 6603). Chorus Systems designs, develops, and markets a family of fully scalable, distributed, real-time operating systems. Chorus provides its customers with the operating system foundation they need to adapt to future technologies and the changing demands of the market. Chorus products are used by a variety of sophisticated OEMÕs, either in general computing or in specific market segments. Chorus classifies its customers as Operating System Vendors/Computer Manufacturers in the general computing category and as Telecommunication and Embedded System Manufacturers in specific market segment categories. Founded in 1986, Chorus Systems is an ISO 9001 certified company with offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific. CHORUS is a registered trademark of Chorus Systems. CHORUS/COOL, CHORUS/Fusion, CHORUS/MiX, CHORUS/OS, and ÒComponentized OSÓ are trademarks of Chorus Systems. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Ltd. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.