In a move to reconcile the chasm between two key emerging object-oriented standards, Microsoft Corp and Digital Equipment Corp duly announced a new bridging technology that enables Microsoft’s OLE 2.0 specification to comply with Digital Equipment Corp’s implementation of the Object Management Group’s Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CI No 2,309). The technology is called […]
In a move to reconcile the chasm between two key emerging object-oriented standards, Microsoft Corp and Digital Equipment Corp duly announced a new bridging technology that enables Microsoft’s OLE 2.0 specification to comply with Digital Equipment Corp’s implementation of the Object Management Group’s Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CI No 2,309). The technology is called the Common Object Model, and according to DEC, will not only enable Object Linking & Embedding to retain its own object model, but will also manage the exchange of objects between OLE and CORBA without Windows or Unix applications being modified. The technology will include an object adaptor from DEC, which translates an OLE object into a CORBA object or vice versa, and an object request broker gateway, which will send and deliver messages between Object Linking & Embedding and the Common Object Request Broker. Also included are systems management and object services from Candle Corp, based in Santa Monica, California, which will sit between the two different technologies. Other third party software developers such as Cognos Inc and SAP AG, for example, will be able to license the technology to develop off-the-shelf applications and tools with Common Object Model-ready attributes embedded in them. The Common Object Model is expected to be available by late 1994. DEC and Microsoft also plan to submit the Common Object Model specification to the Object Management Group for ratification.