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July 30, 1997

Hitachi's New Software Platform Products and Solutions Link Enterprise Information Systems

- Distributed object technology enables systems to link mainframes and UNIX/PCs -

"Companies are looking for technology to integrate resources such as business data and application programs in a distributed computing environment," said Kenichi Furumaya, executive managing director and group executive, Information Systems Group. "Distributed object technology is the key to enable distributed management resources to link together. Hitachi intends to provide customers with highly secured systems solutions with distributed object technology."

The increasing use of network environments such as the Internet and intranets is increasing the size of corporate information systems, while at the same time, distributed systems comprised of different platforms are becoming the mainstream. This is generating a need for high-level links between applications on differing platforms. Distributed object technology is attracting increasing attention as a way of accomplishing this goal.

The new range of software platform products and solution services is a systematically organized compilation of the distributed object technology and systems integration technology that Hitachi has accumulated from its construction of large-scale mainstream systems and through alliances with leading-edge corporations. It is comprised of six main components, ranging from distributed object platforms such as Object Request Broker (ORB) to solution services that support advanced implementations of distributed object system configurations.

The Secure Component Integration Framework (SCIF), developed jointly with Concept Five Technologies, Inc. of the U.S., is the key technology applied to the new software platform products. SCIF includes basic technologies needed to build secure distributed systems, including functions for integrating existing systems into distributed object environment, and security infrastructures. Thus, SCIF-based infrastructure software is as important as ORB in order to realize high-level links among different systems. In view of the central importance of the SCIF, Hitachi is concentrating on achieving the early development and widespread use of products and services which are based on SCIF or on the application framework that can be used in conjunction with SCIF to run typical applications.

The first products will be available at the end of August, and include Database Access for ORB, for linking into mainframe databases, TP1 Access for TPBroker, for linking into online systems, TPBroker 3.0, a transaction processing software based on the latest CORBA specifications, and VisiBroker Bridge, for links with Distributed Component Object Models (DCOMs).

Java is used for all areas of distributed object system development, so Java development tools such as TPBroker for Java Development, will therefore be made available as well as Java environment tools such as TPBroker for Java Runtime.

As the future basis for corporate information system technology, Hitachi intends to aggressively use distributed object technologies in its systems integration and software businesses to achieve a year 2000 target of distributed object technology related sales accounting for at least 40% of overall sales from computer operations.

Pricing and availability of selected products

Database Access for ORB:	From \120,000	End of August 1997
TP1 Access for TPBroker:	From \200,000	End of August 1997
VisiBroker Bridge:	From \93,000	End of August 1997
TPBroker 3.0:	From \24,000	End of November 1997

Background
Hitachi has been collaborating with leading companies to develop products as part of its expansion in this business software sector. This has already yielded TPBroker, a middleware platform for developing systems based on distributed object technology, developed jointly with Visigenic Software, Inc., of the U.S., and Internet banking application software based on TPBroker is being developed with the U.S. company Concorde Solutions, Inc., a Bank of America subsidiary. TPBroker is a CORBA-compliant transaction processor that already has an excellent reputation, and is extensively used in electronic commerce and Internet/intranet environment systems, including Hitachi's own products and services such as its Hitachi Commerce Solutions and business media service for intercorporate EC transactions.

Trademarks and product names
* UNIX is a registered trademark exclusively licensed by X/Open Company Ltd. in the United States and other countries.
* CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) is a standard specification for the development of distributed applications established by the OMG (Object Management Group), an international non-profit foundation.
* Visigenic is a registered trademark of Visigenic Software, Inc.
* VisiBroker is a trademark of Visigenic Software, Inc.
* DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) is a distributed object model name proposed by Microsoft Corporation.
* Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
* Other names of companies, organizations or products are brand names, trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective company or organization.

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