---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SUNSOFT INTRODUCES APPLICATION INTEROPERABILITY SOLUTION SunFLASH Vol 30 #17 June 1991 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lotus, Cadence, Other Companies To Support ToolTalk CFI To Use in Technology Demo MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --June 17, 1991-- SunSoft, a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc., today introduced its first product, ToolTalk(TM), innovative new software that allows easy communication between UNIX(R) applications. With ToolTalk, developers are assured of application interoperability with other vendors' software. As a result, users can increase productivity by having access to multiple applications that cooperate with each other across the network. ToolTalk is the first component of a comprehensive software environment to be unveiled by SunSoft later in the year. Many companies making products for a broad range of commercial and technical markets have endorsed ToolTalk. These include Lotus Development Corp., Cadence, Valid, Cadre Technologies, Interactive Development Environments (IDE), Saber Software and Clarity Software. ToolTalk will be available for SPARC(R) computers and other platforms by the end of the year. ToolTalk will also be used by the CAD Framework Initiative (CFI) in its first demonstration of the Inter-Tool Communication interface. In the demonstration, to be held at the Design Automation Conference in San Francisco today, ToolTalk will run on five different hardware platforms from DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Integraph and Sun. CFI is an industry consortium that defines standards in the CAD market. Several software vendors, including Cadence, Harris Scientific Calculation and Viewlogic Systems, will use ToolTalk in a demonstration of applications communicating with one another at the conference. "One of SunSoft's goals is to provide tools that make the development of client/server applications easier for developers," said Steve MacKay, director of user environments software at SunSoft. "ToolTalk provides a mechanism to allow easy inter-application communication, benefitting not only developers, but also end-users." "ToolTalk gives our users the ability to transparently interact with numerous software applications at their desktop," said Chris McGrath, director of development for cross platform spreadsheets at Lotus Development Corp. "We plan to use ToolTalk in our Lotus 1-2-3 software to communicate with future Lotus products as well as software applications from other vendors." "With the trend toward more complex designs, users are demanding integrated, productive design environments that bring together the best framework technologies and the very best specialized tools from different vendors," said Bob Jolls, executive vice president of marketing at Cadence. "ToolTalk is a major milestone in providing true open tool integration among EDA products from different vendors." ToolTalk Uses Object-Oriented Technology ToolTalk provides communication between applications via two types of messaging: multicast messaging and object-oriented messaging. With multicast messaging, developers first decide what types of information their applications need to receive, then they "register" their requirements with ToolTalk. The SunSoft product acts as the go-between, tracking down data and delivering it to those applications that have requested it. ToolTalk also uses an object-oriented messaging paradigm, allowing developers to take advantage of object orientation and distributed messaging across a network. ToolTalk manages relationships between objects and stores information about them. This mode of object messaging is a step toward the distributed object management specification being jointly developed by Sun and Hewlett-Packard. In February of this year, Sun and HP submitted this technology to the standards organization, the Object Management Group (OMG). Shortly after, Groupe Bull, NCR and Object Design Inc. endorsed this proposal. Recently, Sun and HP agreed to collaborate with DEC and HyperDesk to jointly work on object management technology for the industry. ToolTalk will be shipped in the fourth quarter of this calendar year. Pricing will be available at that time. Developer copies are available today. Product inquiries should be directed to SunSoft corporate headquarters. SunSoft is a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc. The company, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a leading worldwide supplier of client/server UNIX software products to system manufacturers, software developers and end users. SunSoft's products include the Sun operating system (SunOS(TM)), networking software, windowing interfaces and desktop tools. ToolTalk and SunOS are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. All other products mentioned herein are identified by the trademarks as designated by the companies who market those products. Inquiries concerning such trademarks should be made directly to those companies. Sun PR contact Shernaz Daver (415) 336-0678 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu and paris.cs.miami.edu. All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.