TIBCO Ships TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 -- Industry's FirstPublish/Subscribe CORBA ORB.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 1998--TIBCO Software Inc., a pioneer and leader in enterprise software integration, today announced it has begun shipping TIB/ObjectBus 2.0, the first CORBA 2.0-compliant object request broker (ORB) to combine the benefits of standards-based distributed

The announcement was made as part of the unveiling of TIBCO's new TIB/ActiveEnterprise application integration suite that was also announced today. TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 brings TIB (The Information Bus) middleware, which is designed for building enterprise applications that share real-time information, to the Object Management Group's (OMG) Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), enabling massively scalable distributed computing.

TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 leverages TIBCO's patented reliable multicast and publish/subscribe technologies to deliver the industry's first ORB that combines CORBA's functional integration with TIBCO's industrial-strength information distribution capabilities. This coupling provides a flexible object framework for application integration, enabling corporations to become truly "event-driven" -- delivering relevant information in real-time to the people who want it.

"TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 is the first ORB built on a stable foundation of industry-respected, fully functional message-oriented middleware," said Mark Bowles, chief technical officer at TIBCO. "For the first time, users of the CORBA object model can now deploy highly scalable, high-performance applications that go beyond synchronous point-to-point communications to two-way multicast and asynchronous communications in a fully thread-safe and thread-aware environment."

Fully CORBA 2.0 and IIOP-compatible

TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 is a set of software development tools and a runtime environment that support the development and deployment of distributed applications compliant with the CORBA 2.0 specification. At the same time, TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 contains a CORBA Application Programming Interface (API), integrating TIBCO's scalable and reliable transport software, TIB/Rendezvous, which has been proven over the past decade with mission-critical applications in financial trading rooms, semiconductor manufacturing plants, and large-scale industrial facilities worldwide. The TIB software platform actively "pushes" information out over the network the instant new information becomes available.

TIB/ObjectBus also provides support for OMG's Internet Interoperability Protocol (IIOP). By combining support for TIB/Rendezvous and IIOP in a single ORB, TIB is enabling systems integrators to take advantage of existing ORB infrastructures and utilize them for mission-critical applications.

Broadcast and Multicast

Unlike other ORBs, TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 can use broadcast and reliable multicast to make ORB requests and distribute ORB events across an unlimited number of servers and users. TIB/ObjectBus leverages TIBCO's reliable multicast protocol to send information across the network in a one-to-many distribution model, providing an efficient platform for large-scale implementations over the Internet or intranets. These technologies allow a single message to make its way through the "plumbing" of the network to thousands of users or subscribers, rather than sending the same message thousands of times to thousands of users.

TIB/ObjectBus 2.0 also incorporates TIBCO's patented Subject-Based Addressing, which directs messages to their destinations over local networks or the Internet, so that applications can communicate without specifying the details of network addresses or connections. This combination -- reliable multicast and Subject-Based Addressing -- allows one-to-many location transparency for enterprise-wide access to distributed resources.

For example, a user may need to find information, such as job title, salary, or benefits -- which could be located in different databases spread across the corporation -- about an employee named John Doe. TIB/ObjectBus allows the user to simply make a single request for information about John Doe. Other ORBs would require the user to query each database separately. With a single query, the user receives all the information on John Doe without needing to know there are multiple databases. Additionally, this one-to-many model conserves network bandwidth, while optimizing performance.

TIB/ObjectBus also provides access to data in legacy systems for applications such as real-time data warehousing. Servers can push information or data to a channel by publishing business events, such as an inventory level change, making data available in real-time through CORBA. With Subject-Based Addressing, users can specify what data or information they want, regardless of the location or number of servers, databases or applications. -0-

     Additional features of TIB/ObjectBus include:

     --   Asynchronous Remote Method Invocation (A-RMI) with callback
          support. The IDL compiler aids in generating callbacks when
          used easing the path to asynchronous computing

     --   Thread awareness and thread safety of TIB/ObjectBus in its
          entirety

     --   CORBA Name Service

     --   CORBA Event Service

     --   OMG Interface Definition Language (IDL)

     --   C++ Language Mappings

     --   Static Invocation and skeleton interfaces

     --   Dynamic Invocation scheme

     --   Interface Repository support

TIB/ObjectBus                Broadcast            Point-to-point
Communication Methods        TIB Subject-Based    TIB unique endpoint
                             Addressing           or IIOP/TCP

One-way                      ObjectBus            ObjectBus+others
Two-way, synchronous         ObjectBus            ObjectBus+others
Two-way asynchronous         ObjectBus            ObjectBus

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Pricing and Availability

     TIB/ObjectBus is available separately or as a component of the
TIB/ActiveEnterprise application integration suite. Base price starts
at $10,000 per server instance (IIOP).

TIB/ObjectBus is available on the following platforms:

     --   Sun (Ultra) SPARC Solaris 5.5 (sunpro 4.0 and gxx 2.7.2.1)

     --   HP UX 10.0 (HP C++)

     --   Alpha DEC Unix 3.2 (DEC C++ 5.4)

     --   Alpha VMS 6.2+ (DEC C++ 5.4)

     --   Intel x86 Windows NT (Visual C++)

-0- About TIBCO Software Inc.

TIBCO's software is now a de facto standard for enterprise-wide event-driven computing in finance, manufacturing, construction, electronic commerce and other industries. Dozens of companies have endorsed TIBCO software for Internet/intranet applications. Among those companies that have announced alliances with TIBCO are: IBM, Cisco Systems, 3Com, Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Informix, i2 Technologies and Ernst & Young.

TIBCO is an international market leader and pioneer in software tools and services for building distributed applications that provide event-driven and real-time information exchange throughout the enterprise. The company developed and patented publish/subscribe technologies that allow for interapplication communications across heterogeneous environments. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., TIBCO Software, Inc. was formed in 1997 from TIBCO Inc., a company which first became prominent by supplying information management systems to financial trading rooms. TIBCO Inc. was acquired in 1994 by Reuters Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: RTRSY), the international news and financial information services group. TIBCO Software is majority-owned by Reuters. In 1997, Cisco Systems, Inc. purchased a minority stake in TIBCO Software. Its sister company, TIBCO Finance Technology, Inc. is a premier supplier of digital trading systems and integration technologies to finance services firms worldwide. For more information, contact TIBCO at 650/846-5000, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.tibco.com. -0-

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