Antares Alliance Group unleashes VBA on the Web with EdgeworX

Business Wire, April 14, 1997

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 14, 1997--

The First VBA and DCOM-based Development Framework for Building

and Deploying Dynamic Web Applications Now Commercially Available

CyberSource Signed as the First Electronic Distributor

of EdgeworX

Antares Alliance Group today announced the commercial availability of EdgeworX, its object-oriented Web development and execution framework based on Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) technology. EdgeworX represents the only tool that has been built from the ground up to leverage the power of Visual Basic in Web application development while utilizing DCOM technology for distributed execution. In addition, Antares Alliance Group also announced an agreement with CyberSource to be the first electronic distributor of EdgeworX through its online software superstore. Customers can access the CyberSource software superstore either through a quick link from the EdgeworX Web site located at http://www.edgesite.com or from http://www.software.net .

"EdgeworX from Antares Alliance makes VB programmers into Web experts," said Michael Goulde, a senior analyst with the Patricia Seybold Group in his recent report on EdgeworX for their Internet Tools and Technologies service.

"EdgeworX is a framework architected specifically to leverage the simplicity of the Visual Basic development paradigm for Web application development," said Olivier Thierry, vice president and general manager of Antares Alliance Group's Internet line of business. "Developers using EdgeworX are presented with a user friendly and familiar interface for creating and adding logic to Web application components. Now, any VB developer can develop dynamic Web applications in the same intuitive way they have used VB to develop traditional client/server applications," Thierry added.

EdgeworX is a standards-based framework that allows developers to quickly build and deploy highly-interactive Web applications. At the heart of the EdgeworX framework is EdgeCOM, a comprehensive class library of ActiveX objects representing the base components of a Web application, including objects for automated data access to Microsoft Access or any ODBC-compliant data source. Each object contains both the intelligence necessary to dynamically generate the HTML required to represent its interface at the client and the behavioral awareness to respond to logical events. With EdgeworX, a developer may put code logic where it belongs. For example, to process a Web-based login document, a developer adds a button and text boxes to a form and sets the design time properties. The developer then clicks the button to add login processing code to the button,s OnClick event through the VBA IDE. This provides both a familiar paradigm and development environment that eliminates the tedious focus on HTML, CGI scripting and state management.

"We are excited to be entering into this long term strategic, technical and marketing partnership with Antares Alliance through the VBA licensing program," said Tom Button, director of the developer tools division at Microsoft. "Visual Basic is the premier tool for rapid application development. With the tight integration of VBA and DCOM support as part of the EdgeworX product, any of the 3 million Visual Basic developers will be able to quickly create Web applications using a familiar object-based design environment."

Dynamic Web Applications Compatible with any NT or Win95 Web Server

Applications built with EdgeworX are compatible with any Web server in a Windows NT or Windows 95 environment. The unique server-side implementation of EdgeworX enables Web applications to take full advantage of Microsoft's server environment while preserving universality of client deployment; EdgeworX objects generate themselves as standard HTML which allows an EdgeworX application to be deployed to any client. In addition, EdgeworX integrates client-side ActiveX components, Java applets, VB Script and Java Script.

Order EdgeworX Directly Off the Web

Demonstrating a commitment to the electronic distribution channels, Antares Alliance has already signed CyberSource as the first online distributor of EdgeworX through its electronic software superstore. Customers may purchase and download the EdgeworX Developer Edition immediately. Purchases may be made either through a corporate account or by major credit card at http://www.software.net .

System Requirements, Pricing and Availability

Antares Alliance Group's EdgeworX operates on Microsoft NT 4.0 and Microsoft Windows 95 platforms. EdgeworX applications also support any CGI-, ISAPI- and NSAPI-enabled Web server. The minimum memory requirement is 16 MB RAM for the Developer Edition. For a single execution engine/single development machine, the Developer Edition is priced at $399 and is available now. Later this quarter, Antares Alliance will introduce workgroup editions which will enable users to execute multiple concurrent sessions.

Standard service and support is included with purchase which includes electronic problem submission and resolution, FAQ database, news group and additional tutorials access. Premium support is also available and includes a named support contact and 24x7 service for Severity One issues.