Blyth Software Inc has released version 2.0 of its Omnis Web RAD rapid application development toolset. The company will rename itself after its main product – Omnis Software Inc – from April 1, and the follow-up product, a kind of premier version of Omnis, codenamed Prometheus will be available in May. The main change in version 2.0 is server agents to fire dynamically-generated data down to browsers. The agents contain the client-server logic that used to appear only on a fat client, according to David McKay, director of product marketing and management. Making it into an agent means it can be placed on the network for use wherever the user chooses. Blyth will launch a product in late summer called Omnis Agent which is a backplane for hosting these agents. A prototype version of Omnis Agent, called WebGate is available now showing examples of how to create cross-platform web servers. HTML conversion has also been improved in version 2.0 to produce a second version of reports with HTML tags. The name of the holding company – Blyth Holdings – will have to wait until a shareholders meeting in July, but the UK business will change to Omnis Software Ltd at the same time as in the US. There are various packages for existing Omnis users and for existing Web RAD users – Web RAD is a combination of the Omnis database and cross-platform client-server application development toolset and the Web-enabling software – as well as for newcomers to Omnis, and discounts for bundled options. For Omnis 7 users who haven’t got their applications on the Web the Jumpstart Pak costs $2,000 to do this. For existing Web RAD users there are various packages starting at $1,500.
