OMNIS SOFTWARE AND DLA ANNOUNCE LINUX SUPPORT

SYDNEY, (7th May 1999) (NASDAQ BB:OMNS) In line with its tradition of supporting genuine cross-platform development and deployment, OMNIS Software and DLA today announced the forthcoming availability of its solution development tool, OMNIS Studio, in the Linux operating environment. This will enable developers to create and deliver their solutions on Linux in addition to its existing environments.

“Bringing the power of OMNIS Studio to the growing Linux market is an exciting step for us” said Gwyneth Gibbs, President of OMNIS Software. “OMNIS Studio is a mature, reliable product capable of delivering solutions in a wide range of markets and we fully expect this to encourage a whole new generation of OMNIS developers.”

“This is no idle promise” said Stephen Miller, Technical Director at The DLA Group Pty Ltd, the original promoter of the OMNIS Linux version. DLA is the exclusive OMNIS distributor in South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

“The binary compatibility of the OMNIS application libraries and the true cross-platform nature of the OMNIS development environment will allow developers to develop on Linux and deploy on Linux, Windows 16 and 32 bit and all MacOS platforms without any code or design modification. The availability of a full featured database development tool is the missing component in the Linux workstation product mix. This is great news for Linux devotees. Combined with the OMNIS Web Client technology, a Linux shop will now be able to develop an application for deployment on the Web, or any other common platform within the one development environment and language. “No HTML, Java, Javascript, Perl, C++ ‘marriages’. Just one language, and one debugger!” said Miller.

A Beta version is planned for July, with a first release in September 1999. This release will support the OMNIS database only; future versions will add support for the full range of commercial databases currently supported by OMNIS. The OMNIS Web Client technology which allows the delivery of solutions to the desktop will work with the Linux version. For more information about the web client, visit the OMNIS web site at http://www.omnis-software.com/download/webclient/webclient.html

DLA will partner with the major Linux Users Groups in the region to assist them to use the best database tool on the market.

OMNIS Software has achieved a number of firsts in the database and development tools market since it was founded 20 years ago, including shipping the first Macintosh database in 1985 and the first Windows database in 1987. Having followed the Linux movement closely, we now see its acceptance as a commercial alternative for the general market, with major vendors like Dell Computer offering Linux preinstalled on their workstations and servers. OMNIS Software is happy to be able to respond quickly to the demand for fully functioning development tools for Linux that follows its success.

OMNIS brings the advantages of its premier object oriented development tool to this platform. Linux users will now be able to use a true 4GL environment to develop applications on the same platform that they will deploy solutions on, for server as well as front end applications. And OMNIS is true cross platform, so Linux applications will be binary compatible with Windows (3.x, 95, 98 and NT) and Macintosh systems, and in return will give Linux users access to a large number of commercial solutions built in OMNIS Studio.

OMNIS Technology Corporation OMNIS Technology Corporation is a leader in developing and deploying cross-platform component engineering software. The OMNIS Studio and OMNIS 73 product lines support the full life cycle of applications and are ideal for the rapid development and deployment of sophisticated Web and client/server solutions, providing true re-use of software objects and the ability to integrate objects from disparate programming languages. In addition to connectivity to Oracle, Sybase, and Informix, OMNIS products are currently the only microcomputer database development systems that support IBM’s DB/2 Universal Database in native mode on Macintosh and Windows machines.

Contact in Australasia: info@dlagroup.com.au

The DLA Group, Sydney
+61 – 2 -95554777