ICL Plc has now launched Fujitsu Ltd’s ODB-II object-oriented database into the European marketplace, the result of a collaboration it announced last June (CI No 2,442). ODB-II, which Fujitsu launched in Japan last February and for which it now has around 200 installations, is described as an industrial strength object database consisting of a kernel database engine, a graphical development environment called ModelWorks, and several class libraries including multimedia and document management. There are interfaces to C, C++, Visual Basic and other Windows-based client applications, and an interface between ODB-II and ICL’s DIAS object request broker. It can also be used in conjunction with GraphicsPower, the development tool jointly developed by ICL and Fujitsu (CI No 2,442). ICL is doing all the conversion work for itself and Fujitsu at its Dublin development laboratories, with versions for HP-UX, UnixWare 2.0 and Solaris, as well as ICL-Fujitsu’s NX/7 Unix implementation for Sparc. A Windows NT version is under development, says ICL. ICL will initially target the database at the publishing industries and has a prototype application, the ICL Publishing Content Store. UK prices for ODB-II start at #3,800, for a single-user licence and the thing is available now.
