Dallas, Texas-based ObjectSpace Inc, which is involved in object-oriented consulting, training and development, has released a version of its ObjectSystem C++ development system as Systems ToolKit. The kit includes the company’s multithreaded implementation of the Hewlett-Packard Co-derived ANSI Standard Template Library container for storing C++ object classes and algorithms, which ObjectSpace claims is the first to run across all native compiler systems. The library interfaces with operating system files, sockets, threads and IPC Inter-Process Communication processes, it is the lowest-level component library, and code written with the tool kit will apparently run without modification across Unix, Windows, NT and OS/2. Systems ToolKit is priced at from $375 and competes with products such as XVT Software Inc’s tools.h++. The library is available separately at $150. The company claims it has OEM customers in hand. Meantime, it is working on getting its ObjectCatalog for tracking and finding re-usable code ado pted by the likes of Taligent Inc or at least having Taligent advertise its wares in the catalogue so that users seeking particular types of objects and frameworks will get a CommonPoint listing with Taligent product details. Server versions are $9,500, clients from $300. The privately-funded concern claims to have been in profit since it was founded almost three years ago; its revenues are divided equally between training, consulting and product sales. It is looking to grow the product side of the business, focusing on distributed processing. It has 45 staff in Dallas, six in Washington DC, expects to be up to 100 by year-end, and plans a European operation. It is currently working on an Object Linking & Embedding 2.0 to Common Object Request Broker Architecture 2.0 integration mechanism, including an object request broker – Iona Technologies Ltd’s Orbix and more, it claims – for users trying to hook Microsoft Corp and Object Management Group environments together. It is considering a response to the Object Group’s interoperability Request For Proposals, and believes Common Object Request Broker Architecture will go far. It sets little store by Distributed Computing Environment which it believes will quietly fade away. Taligent, it says, is a reasonable stab at a framework architecture, although the alpha releases performed abysmally. Data processing departments’ penchant for Smalltalk over C++ will drive the object market, it believes, as it reckons Smalltalk is more suited to folk used to legacy programming styles, and is also more likely than C++ to invest the user with an object mentality. The Digitalk Inc-ParcPlace Systems Inc merger (CI No 2,669) is an obvious indication of the trend toward Smalltalk, it argues, as are the expectations for IBM Corp’s Smalltalk VisualAge.
