On the quiet, reportedly unbeknown to the hardware hierarchy, whose purposes are not truly served by interoperability, ExperSoft Corp, with the connivance of the Object Management Group, is working on what might be called a MegaORB. The pair are minded to create a standard for interoperability among Object Request Brokers so that anything written to any Object Request Broker would communicate with any other Object Request Broker. ExperSoft, based in San Diego, will submit MegaORB as its answer to the Object Group’s Corba 2.0 interoperability Request for Proposals, which was due to close on Monday. The MegaORB protocol could conceivably neutralise some of the political issues surrounding objects. MegaORB takes a universal lowest common denominator approach but will also embrace Object Request Brokers that been have optimised in some proprietary way to communicate with each other. The ExperSoft proposal is thought to differ sharply from other Corba 2 submissions. MegaORB’s natural allies are systems integrators whose advantage is not served by fragmentation. Their support will be sought to get the MegaORB adopted. ExperSoft will claim the proposal is viable because the technology to implement it has been part of its XShell product since it was commercialised in late 1991.
