Platinum to Ship New Microsoft Repository
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InfoWorld has reported that Platinum Technology later this year will ship the Microsoft Repository 2.0 on Unix and mainframe platforms, but many data-warehousing capabilities will wait until a follow-up edition, expected in 1999.

Platinum will release versions of Microsoft's Repository 2.0 meta-data integration utility for Solaris, HP-UX, and IBM OS/390 platforms. Versions supporting Oracle, Sybase, and DB2 running on Windows NT also are due in that time frame. The current release works only with Microsoft Access desktop database and the SQL Server database on Windows NT.

Beta copies of Repository 2.0 will ship next month or in October for Solaris, Sybase, and Oracle, sources close to Platinum and Microsoft said. The two companies next month will announce these upcoming releases, as well as provide a look ahead at Version 3.0 of the Repository, at the Comdex Enterprise convention in San Francisco.

As a part of Visual Studio 6.0, Microsoft this week will ship Version 2.0 of its Repository for Microsoft platforms, the result of a year-long partnership between Microsoft and Platinum. The companies will announce an extension of the working partnership to include the launch of Repository 3.0, sometime in 1999.

Although Microsoft's repository has an application-development focus for storing shared meta data about components and deploying them via Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM), Version 3.0 emphasizes data-warehousing and corporate business process capabilities. It will feature hooks for legacy databases and legacy systems such as MVS, and Cobol. Additionally, built-in replication and data-distribution features are on tap, as well as "role-based" security models, which are missing in the current version.

Version 3.0 will be based on Microsoft's Data Warehousing Framework, which will be highlighted in November as part of the release of SQL Server 7.0, said an industry source familiar with the repository plans. These additions suggest that the two companies plan to position their offering against Oracle's Repository. "Oracle's repository only works with Oracle," said a source close to Microsoft and Platinum. "It's a closed environment."

But Jeremy Burton, Oracle's vice president of marketing for development tools, in Redwood Shores, Calif., questioned the true cross-platform capabilities of the Microsoft-Platinum repository. "Their repository is dependent on COM," Burton said. "And right now the repository only runs on [Windows] NT with Access and SQL Server. Using COM on HP-UX and Solaris is scary stuff." Platinum also plans to license the Repository 2.0 engine to other vendors in 1998.

Platinum Technology, in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., can be reached at http://www.platinum.com Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Wash., can be reached at http://www.microsoft.com