--Eugene
Forte Software and Netscape Collaborate to Provide Internet-Enabled Distributed
Applications
COMPANIES WILL LEVERAGE CORBA INTERFACE BETWEEN NETSCAPE VISUAL JAVASCRIPT
AND FORTE SERVICES TO PROVIDE CROSSWARE APPLICATIONS
OAKLAND, Calif. and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 22 /PRNewswire/ --
Forte Software, Inc. (Nasdaq:FRTE), a leading provider of products
for developing distributed applications, and Netscape(R)
Communications Corporation (Nasdaq:NSCP), a leading provider of
software for the Internet and enterprise networks, today announced an
agreement to work together. This joint effort is intended to help
customers develop high-performance, Internet-enabled applications. The
companies will leverage Netscape's expertise in Internet technology
and Forte's experience in server-side functionality for large- scale,
distributed applications.
The companies' initial efforts will focus on the Internet INTERORB
Protocol (IIOP) interface to Netscape's recently announced Visual
JavaScript in order to facilitate seamless accessibility by services
within Forte's products. Visual JavaScript is a visual programming
tool that lets enterprise developers rapidly build Intranet and
Extranet applications without writing software code. As a result
developers will be able to build applications that integrate
distributed applications created within the Forte environment with
Netscape servers and clients. In addition, applications developed with
Visual JavaScript and the Forte Application Environment(TM) will
automatically benefit from Forte's intrinsic load balancing and
failover capabilities.
``Forte's technical expertise in building enterprise-class distributed
applications in combination with Netscape's strength in Intranet and
Extranet technology makes for excellent synergy,'' said Marc
Andreessen, senior vice president of technology at Netscape. ``Working
with Forte, a leader in enterprise distributed development, Netscape
can accelerate and simplify the creation and deployment of
applications for the Networked Enterprise.''
Marty Sprinzen, president and CEO of Forte Software, said, ``This
agreement with Netscape gives our customers two strong partners who
are committed to providing the tools they need to develop reliable,
high-performance applications. It demonstrates Forte's commitment and
ability to embrace new technologies that enable our customers to take
advantage of Intranets for internal use, and Extranets for external
access to enterprise applications.''
IIOP Interface to Visual JavaScript
Forte and Netscape have already begun work on this seamless access.
Forte has exposed its services to IIOP and is working with Netscape to
allow Visual JavaScript to call these and other IIOP-components. Using
Netscape Visual JavaScript, enterprise developers can rapidly build
Crossware, a new category of on-demand applications that run across
networks, operating systems and platforms and are based on open
standards. Crossware is an ideal mechanism for customers to take
advantage of the distributed functionality of Forte applications
within an Intranet or Extranet environment.
The Forte Application Environment is an integrated set of
object-oriented tools for building, deploying and managing distributed
applications.
Information systems organizations use the Forte Application
Environment to dramatically increase productivity by shortening the
application development process, improving the quality of the
completed applications and enabling reliable operations in distributed
computing environments.