Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Uniface International BV previewed Peacock, the firm’s next generation object-oriented application development environment, at its UK user group conference in London. It is still beta testing the tool, but expects to introduce Peacock – or Uniface version 6.0 – in a few months. It will include multimedia extensions and support for Microsoft Corp’s Object Linking & Embedding 2.0 specification. According to Uniface UK user group chairman Nigel Heath, future Peacock users will be able to build applications with generic multimedia drivers embedded in the code, which will enable audio, video and graphics to be sent via gateways to other applications on distributed networks. OLE 2.0 conformance enables users to embed compound documents in different Windows applications. Meanwhile it seems Peacock is the vogue codename for object developments. Uniface rival Unify Corp has named its similar object-oriented software Peacock as well. It might just have something do with Uniface’s director of corporate marketing, Anu Shuka, who recently held a senior position at Unify – perish such an unworthy thought!
