ISG Navigator, first OLE DB distributed middleware, delivers interfaces to Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects

Business Wire, Dec 12, 1996

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 12, 1996--

Integration enables Enterprise Data Access for Internet and

Intranet Applications

ISG International Software Group Ltd. (NASDAQ NMS:SISGF) today announced availability of a breakthrough native interface for ISG Navigator, the first OLE DB-based distributed middleware, that accesses Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) making corporate data accessible to Microsoft (NASDAQ NMS:MSFT) and third party products based on ADO.

ISG Navigator allows programmers developing Internet and Intranet applications to access most corporate data from within scripts which use HTML, Java, and Visual Basic languages.

"The ISG Navigator ADO interface enables Internet and Intranet users to simultaneously access data that is stored on NT, UNIX and OpenVMS computers in databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, Sybase Rdb and CA-Ingres and file systems such as RMS and C-ISAM and others," said Arie Gonen, ISG's chairman and CEO. "With its ADO interface, ISG Navigator offers an enterprise connectivity component for Microsoft's products and applications that are using the latest Microsoft ActiveX technology. We expect rapid proliferation of ISG Navigator as the Universal Data Access provider for Web browsers and Web servers. ISG Navigator-enabled Internet users will have more heterogeneous data readily available at their fingertips than their colleagues without ISG Navigator."

"ISG's support for ActiveX Data Objects brings an unprecedented level of data access and integration to businesses implementing Internet and Intranet applications," said David Cameron, Manager of Microsoft's Database API group. "For the first time, users will have easy Web-based access to critical data distributed across the organization, whether the data resides on Windows NT, UNIX or Open VMS systems."

Cameron added, "The combination of Microsoft's new suite of Internet development tools, ADO and ISG Navigator's Universal Data Access power brings Internet application development to a new level of simplicity and flexibility that has not been possible until now."

ADO encapsulates data and data access operations in high-level data objects, suitable for Internet browsers and middle-tier Web servers. As a result, users now have available on Windows NT platforms the full power of OLE DB, realized through ISG Navigator's ability to access and integrate legacy data and relational data which resides on a large variety of back-end platforms.

ADO is Microsoft's recently-announced successor to DAO and RDO, the two popular data access interfaces originally developed by Microsoft for Visual Basic. While DAO and RDO were based on the relational (ODBC) data model, ADO is designed for the more powerful post-relational OLE DB model and is better integrated into the ActiveX (OLE) environment. ADO ships with all Microsoft languages: Visual C/C , Java, Visual Basic, Visual Basic Script, and Java Script as well as Microsoft's new Internet products: Internet Information Server 3.0, and Microsoft Transaction Server. By using the ISG Navigator ADO interface, all of these languages and tools will be able to transparently access and join remote data sources of all types, on multi platforms, wherever they are throughout the Internet.

About ISG

ISG is the leading provider of Universal Data Access middleware based on Microsoft's new OLE DB standard and standards-based (OLE DB, ODBC and ActiveX) development and integration tools. ISG products are available on multiple platforms and provide simultaneous database-independent access to many databases and file systems. The company's principal products are: ISG Navigator; CorVision10; and APTuser. ISG has sales and support offices in the United States, Israel, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Australia. For more information, visit ISG's Web site at http://www.isg.co.il .

CONTACT: ISG International Software Group Ltd.

Arie Gonen, 617/221-1450 ext. 216

Email: arie.gonen@isg-us.com

or

Sunrise Securities Corp.

Derek Caldwell, 212/421-1616