SAN MATEO (12-02-95) - Object Power Inc. -- a spin-off of systems integrator Cambridge Technology Group -- will this week launch a Visual Basic-like Internet development tool that lets developers embed OLE custom controls (OCXes) in their World Wide Web applications.
Object Power's Openscape, due to ship in January, uses the plug-in architecture in Netscape Communication Corp.'s Navigator 2.0 Web browser to let developers use OCXes to augment the functionality of their Internet applications.
Object Power officials said Openscape is easier to use than Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java -- which is derived from C++ -- and that these embedded OCXes boast faster performance than Java applets.
Microsoft Corp.'s Blackbird on-line development tool will also feature support for both OCXes and the Visual Basic language scripting. But an Internet version is not due until the second half of 1996.
Some Web developers agree that Openscape provides an easy-to-use alternative to existing Web tools.
"[Openscape] lets you make applications that you can't make with Hypertext Markup Language unless you use Java. But if I'm good at Visual Basic, or any form builder, I can accomplish very easily what people are hyping in Java," said Alex Laats, technology licensing officer at MIT, in Cambridge, Mass. (MIT made the White House's Web page.)
A separate Openscape Enterprise edition will add a suite of back-end components that connects Web servers to relational databases and client/server applications such as SAP AG's R3.
The Enterprise version will be positioned as a tool to create internal networks based on the Web, observers said, and will support the DES security standard.
Hewlett-Packard Co. is considering using the enterprise version of Openscape to create Web applications in large-scale systems integration contracts, said Tom Hoban, a consultant with HP, in Burlington, Mass.
Currently, Openscape only works on Windows, but Object Power intends to follow up with a Unix version in the second quarter of 1996. Eventually, Openscape will embed Java applets and OpenDoc components, the company said.
Openscape Pro with OCX support will cost $145 per desktop. The Enterprise edition will cost $18,000. The Openscape 1.0 beta version can be downloaded at www.opower.com.
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