WebSite Professional Offers Greatest Flexibility, Ships with Cryptographic Security, Software Development Kits and ODBC Integration; Server Software Package Supports Adobe Acrobat 3.0, Java, Netscape Navigator Gold

Business Wire, June 24, 1996

SEBASTOPOL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 1996--WebSite Professional(TM), the second generation of the award-winning server software WebSite(TM), is now shipping, O'Reilly & Associates announced today.

The product, which runs on both Windows NT and 95, boasts numerous upgraded and new features, including cryptographic security, support for a wide range of programming applications, Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC) integration, three new books, and several software development kits. List price is $499, with upgrade pricing for WebSite 1.1 customers available from O'Reilly for $99.

WebSite Professional also includes all the features of its predecessor WebSite 1.1, including the HotDog Standard HTML editor, WebView(TM) graphical document and link viewer, and the Mosaic browser. Both are products of O'Reilly & Associates, developed in cooperation with independent developer Robert Denny and Enterprise Integration Technologies (EIT), Inc./Verifone.

O'Reilly Software Online (http://software.ora.com/) contains information about the new product.

Security & Flexibility

WebSite Professional supports the two most widely used security protocols for confidential transactions, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) version 2.0 and Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (S-HTTP). Both these standards provide cryptographic privacy, for such transmissions as credit card purchases on the World Wide Web or publishing corporate strategies on Intranets, and S-HTTP provides personal digital signatures and authentication.

The package was designed to provide web developers the greatest flexibility, both for page development and page generation. "We've been committed to open standards for a long time," noted Gina Blaber, Director of the Software Products Group and Product Manager for WebSite Professional.

"WebSite Professional is the only 32-bit Windows web server that supports three Common Gateway Interfaces (CGIs), WebSite Application Programming Interface (WSAPI), and Microsoft Internet Server (IS) API compatibility. WebSite Professional programmers can develop in Visual Basic, Delphi, perl, or C . It's clear that this is the most customizable web server package, offering the greatest flexibility to web developers."

Web developers can choose any of four methods of dynamic page generation: Server-Side Includes (SSI), CGI, API, and API-integrated, template-based ODBC.

WebSite Professional's exclusive server-side Java development support makes it possible to use the Java object-oriented language to rapidly develop sophisticated server-side applications or applets that extend the server's capabilities.

WebSite Professional ships with four software development kits (SDKs): for server-side Java, WSAPI, API-integrated perl version 5 for Win32, and Visual Basic. Each SDK includes extensive online documentation. Cold Fusion Standard, the ODBC package integrated into WebSite Pro, also features an SDK and templates. Cold Fusion Standard allows users to query any compatible database, update it, and insert new information easily.

Expanding WebSite Pro Through Extensions and Authoring Tools

WebSite's capabilities can be significantly expanded through extensions and authoring tools. The WSAPI offers a fast alternative to CGI, with compatibility to Microsoft's ISAPI-ISA, seven different types of extensions, more than 40 server-internal functions exposed for direct use by extensions, and a built-in optimized HTML forms decoder which supports all types of form encoding (including uploaded files).

Instead of doing CGI programming, Web administrators who want to add database connectivity to their web sites can use API-integrated Cold Fusion Standard, which makes access to ODBC/SQL databases quick and straightforward. Most other servers either don't offer ODBC, or offer it at a substantial cost for both ODBC functionality and technical support.

Both WebSite Professional and WebSite 1.1 support Adobe Acrobat 3.0's quick page-at-a-time display of Portable Document Format (PDF) files, one of Adobe Acrobat's most popular new features. WebSite Professional's support for Netscape Navigator Gold's one-button publishing is designed to assist Internet Service Providers who host web pages for their clients. WebSite Pro also supports Microsoft Front Page extensions.

In-Depth Technical Support

WebSite Professional includes 90 days free technical support on-line and via telephone, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Following the 90 days, through a new program of O'Reilly's, customers can purchase technical support for $80 per incident. WebSite Professional customers may also purchase an annual contract for $450. Bundled technical support for two or more of O'Reilly's software products is also available.

About O'Reilly & Associates

O'Reilly & Associates has long been recognized worldwide for its definitive books on the Internet and UNIX, and more recently for its groundbreaking development of online content and software. O'Reilly developed the Global Network Navigator (GNN), a pioneering web-based publication which it sold to America Online in June, 1995. In addition to WebSite Professional, other current and upcoming software products include WebSite 1.1, WebBoard, PolyForm, and Statisphere, a server statistics program scheduled for fall, 1996 release. -0-