Ottawa, Canada-based ObjecTime Ltd, a Bell Northern Research Inc subsidiary, claims it has developed the first Unix object-oriented software engineering tool for real-time applications, ObjecTime. The company, which opened its doors for business a month ago, was spun out to market the two-year-old Bell Northern technology developed for the telecommunications market. Headed by ObjecTime president, Jim McGee, the company is staffed by 14 former Bell Northern employees. The company says the software enables users to create executable object analysis and design models graphically, without being committed to programming languages – C++ or ParcPlace Software Inc’s Smalltalk – early on in application development. This makes application specifications more modularised, flexible and easier to modify, it says. ObjecTime features include TCP/IP network communications and object identify functions, object behaviour calls, inheritance, containment and encapsulation capabilities. Vying for a position against the likes of Cadre Technologies Inc, ObjecTime says its tool – unlike Cadre’s TeamWork – was developed from the ground up as a real-time object software engineering tool and is not a traditional software engineering kit with object extensions. It is targeted at the telecommunications and aerospace markets. ObjecTime is available on Sun Microsystems Inc’s Sparcstations – support for Hewlett-Packard Co’s HP 9000 Series 700s and IBM Corp RS/6000s will be available first quarter 1993. A single-user licence goes for $20,000, inclusive of training and one year’s maintenance.
