Oracle Corp will release version 2 of its Power Objects cross- system answer to Microsoft Corp Visual Basic in May. It is integrating Personal Oracle Lite in place of its current ANSI SQL 92-compliant engine, Blaze. Personal Oracle Lite, which is also available as a separate product, is a trimmed-down version of Oracle7 that can run in as little as 1Mb RAM and 10Mb disk. Blaze was the project name for the completed database and Lite is a natural progression, claims Oracle. Lite includes improved performance, additional datatypes and provides an external Open Data Base Connectivity application programming interface. Data and applications can be moved seamlessly between the two, it claims. Power Objects 2.0 will include native 32-bit support, support for over 30 OCXs including graphing and Dynamic Data Exchange, plus Open Data Base Connectivity and Object Linking & Embedding support. It will also support Oracle7 Symmetric replication. Oracle Personal Lite runs under Windows NT, Windows95, 3.x and Mac and runs applications built with Oracle’s Designer and Developer/2000 development tools. Personal Oracle Lite prices go from $200. Power Objects prices go from $400.
