Versant Announces Versant Developer Suite (VDS) 6.0

Versant Corporation, a leading provider of middleware infrastructure technology, announced the commercial availability of Versant Developer Suite (VDS) 6.0. VDS 6.0 is Versant's 6th generation Object Database Management System (ODBMS) designed to handle highly complex applications such as fraud detection, yield management, risk management and classified real-time data collection and analysis applications. VDS 6.0 also serves as the object persistence cache for leading application servers as part of the Versant enJin goal to accelerate Internet transactions.

VDS 6.0 combines native support for object-oriented languages, such as C++ and Java, with high performance database functionality and a distributed architecture to help customers accelerate time-to-market, boost performance and enhance data management. When used with Versant enJin as a persistent cache, customers can also boost performance and scalability for their highly distributed e-business applications.

"The need to manage and recover transactions involving multiple data sources will increase the demand for persistence services to support the object-oriented components of application servers," said Carl Olofson, Program Director, IDC Information and Data Management Software. "Vendors such as Versant are well-positioned to offer customer-proven solutions to turbo-charge these application server environments by providing persistent caching functionality without explicit database programming in the components themselves. An ODBMS, such as VDS 6.0, also relieves developers of the awkward and time-consuming task of converting data from the object-oriented model of Java and C++ components to the relational database."

"Versant is committed to enhancing our core ODBMS to continue to serve those demanding applications that the more traditional RDBMS has not been able to help," said Keiron McCammon, Director of Technology and Strategy, Versant. "As the same time, we believe that there is a tremendous opportunity to serve customers now deploying application servers with Versant enJin. These customers, too, require not just high performance and scalability, but also an ability to distribute their applications across the global Internet and to guarantee 24X7 uptime."

Smarten, an Integrated Service Management software solution offering end-to-end management for a wide range of telephony services, has been using Versant object solutions for more than two years and recently tested the beta version of VDS 6.0. Smarten's telecommunications software solution are differentiated in the marketplace as a truly object-oriented architecture and service-centered approach enabling the customer to define any business model and select any network technology and external system. "We use Versant's Developer Suite 6.0 to handle the complexity of the telephony environment and to achieve the highest performance possible in order to rate thousands of transactions per minute," said David Greco, Chief Architect, Smarten. "We are also using the new suite to enhance management of different character sets needed for an environment of multi-language and multi-currency systems."

This latest version of the Versant Developer Suite not only improves many core features of Versant's ODBMS -- it focuses on performance, security and query enhancements -- it also incorporates support for the latest industry standards including Java and XML. The Java Developer's Interface (JVI) features advanced caching, synchronization and object mapping. The Versant XML Toolkit provides for bulk import/export of XML objects and for the creation of applications that wish to programmatically input and output Versant database objects as XML. The suite currently supports 32- and 64- bit operating systems to enhance scalability and improve support of large databases by increasing the amount of addressable memory that can be allocated.

Versant Developer Suite 6.0 is available from Versant today. Pricing for runtime licenses begin at $24,995 per CPU.

About Smarten

Smarten Software's Smarten R2 customer management and billing software provides Internet Service Providers, telecommunications providers, emerging Internet businesses and corporations offering online services a solution for the effective billing and care management of customers, according to their usage of subscribed services. Currently based in Rome, Smarten Software was founded in January 1999. Smarten Software developed an excellent early track record in Italy and now aims to make significant inroads into the international market. Smarten Software estimates that 30% of their sales will be generated from abroad in 2000, a proportion Smarten expects to grow to 60% in 2001. Smarten Software worldwide partners include Sun Microsystems, Iona Technologies, Xaact Technologies and the Versant Corporation, amongst others.

About Versant Corporation

Since the company's founding in 1988, Versant Corporation has led the industry in providing highly scalable and reliable object management solutions for complex, enterprise-level systems. Customers in the telecommunications, financial services, transportation, and defense industries have depended on Versant ODBMS for large-scale applications such as yield management, fraud detection, real-time data collection and analysis, and operation support systems (OSS). Today, Versant enJin applies that same technology to another large-scale solution, helping customers build their e-business and Internet infrastructure where scalability, performance and fast time-to-market are critical success factors. Additional information about Versant and its products may be obtained by phone at 510-789-1500 or at www.versant.com.

Contact Versant, Elizabeth Hoff of S&S Public Relations, 847-955-0700, elizabeth@sspr.com.