MSFT+ IONAY Microsoft and Iona to integrate COM,
CORBA offerings
By Niall McKay
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 8:41 AM PT, May 26, 1998
Microsoft is working with Iona Technologies to integrate its Microsoft Transaction Server
(MTS) with Iona's Object Transaction Monitor (OTM) software, sources said.
When the integration is complete, it will enable transactions started in MTS to be completed
in Iona's Object Request Broker (ORB)-based OTM, and it will enable transactions started
in Iona's OTM product to be completed in MTS, sources said.
The companies are expected to formally unveil integration plans at Microsoft's Tech Ed
conference in New Orleans this week.
This is seen by industry watchers as representative of Microsoft's move from porting its
Component Object Model (COM) architecture, upon which MTS is based, onto a variety
of platforms to providing interoperability with CORBA-based systems, such as OTM.
Microsoft partners -- including Hewlett-Packard, Digital, and Software AG -- in the past
few years have taken up the task of porting COM to a number of Unix platforms.
In January, Iona licensed Microsoft's ActiveX core technologies for use with its
OrbixCOMet, a bridge that passes COM objects into CORBA environments and vice
versa, and announced its intentions to further the relationship. (See "CORBA vendors mull
integration approaches.")
Microsoft officials confirmed that it would work with Iona to help make its MTS services
available to CORBA, but stressed that its relationship with Iona was not an exclusive one,
and that it would announce more relationships with other CORBA vendors soon.
However, it is still unclear if other ORB vendors, such as BEA Systems, will also announce a
strategic relationship with Microsoft.
"This is significant because it means that Microsoft has identified CORBA as a technology
worth supporting," said John Rymer, director and senior consultant at Upstream Consulting,
in Emeryville, Calif.
Officials at Iona Technology and Microsoft officials declined to comment on the deal.
Iona Technologies Inc., in Dublin, Ireland, can be reached at iona.com.
Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Wash., can be reached at microsoft.com.
Niall McKay is a senior editor for InfoWorld. |
