Apple Delivers WebObjects 4.5

CUPERTINO, California—March 1, 2000—Apple® today announced immediate availability of WebObjects® 4.5, an enhanced version of the world’s leading application server software used to develop and deploy enterprise-level network applications for Internet, intranet, extranet and e-commerce web sites.


WebObjects 4.5 remains the most comprehensive application server on the market with new tools, technologies and capabilities that increase its ease of use, reduce web application development time and can improve performance by more than 50 percent.


“WebObjects is the application server platform of choice because of its reliable, mature and comprehensive environment,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Now customers can create the world’s most powerful web sites faster than ever before with WebObjects’ new WebObjects Builder interface and Direct to Java Client technology.”


WebObjects is an open and flexible, standards-compliant application server that is ideal for developing Java applications. It has an object-oriented architecture that promotes quick development of reusablecomponents. WebObjects provides scalability, load balancing and fault-tolerant capabilities for multi-threaded applications running across multiple CPUs that support high transaction volumes.


New features in WebObjects 4.5 include:

• Integrated XML support, using IBM’s alphaWorks parser, enabling developers to easily build applications that exchange data with other XML-based application systems;
• A user interface for the WebObjects Builder with features that shorten development time and help new developers learn WebObjects even faster;
• Built-in application profiling tools that allow WebObjects applications to dynamically monitor execution environments, which can improve performance by at least 50 percent;
• A back-end LDAP adaptor that enables developers to authenticate users against LDAP servers or build asset management applications that can easily talk to directory services; and
• A new Direct to Java Client technology which completely automates the process of creating rich, 100 percent Pure Java clients for accessing databases over the Internet.

 


WebObjects 4.5 builds on the stellar productivity and performance capabilities of the platform’s previous release and it expands the requirements for standard application server software. WebObjects 4.5 also lays the foundation for future releases which will contain even more support for Java and other value-added standards and platforms, including EJB (Enterprise Java Beans).


Availability, Pricing and System Requirements
WebObjects 4.5 is currently available through The Apple Store™ (www.apple.com) and via Apple’s regional sales offices. For additional information call 1-800-848-6398.


WebObjects is priced at US$1,499 per seat for the developer edition, which includes licenses to deploy limited performance servers. Customer deployment prices range from US$7,500 to US$50,000 per server, depending on the number of connections associated with a deployment license.


WebObjects 4.5 is a fully cross-platform solution available for Windows NT/2000, Solaris, HP-UX, Mac OS® X Server and now, for HP-UX 11 systems.