San Mateo, California-based Visigenic Software Inc has licensed Microsoft Corp’s Open Data Base Connectivity source code to provide what it claims is the first ODBC application programming interface for Unix environments. According to Visigenic’s chief executive, Roger Sippl, the firm’s implementation of ODBC will enable applications to access both relational and non-relational databases irrespective of their origin (that is from an Oracle, Sybase, DB/2, Informix or Ingres engine). At present, he says, database vendors provide their own proprietary ODBC interfaces, which will only enable applications to access Microsoft databases from within that environment. Under the terms of the agreement, Visigenic has gone to Redmond for the rights to Microsoft’s ODBC SDK 2.0, the latest version of the interface – which has yet to be officially announced. It is currently converting the ODBC Driver Manager to Unix and is working on its own ODBC developers kit for application development. The kit includes the Driver Manager, header files, sample programs and utilities such as on-line transaction processing support and fault-tolerance functions. Visigenic’s software development kit goes into beta test next month. It will be available either as a module to the company’s application development environment or as a stand-alone product by the end of the year, the company says.
