Wallop Build-It Kick-Starts Use of Informix Universal Server on Web

FOSTER CITY, CA, December 3, 1996 � Wallop Software, Inc. and Informix Software, Inc. today announced technical integration between Wallop Build-IT and INFORMIX�-Universal Server. The Build-IT Web application assembly environment offers the only way to seamlessly move tens of thousands of Web components stored in flat file-based Web servers to Informix's object-relational Universal Server. The unique ability to effortlessly leverage existing Web components, and store them in a reliable, scaleable, and secure database will rapidly establish Build-IT's position as the industries only collaborative Web application assembly environment, and INFORMIX-Universal Server as the market leading Web component repository. Wallop and Informix also announced a product bundling arrangement in which a trial copy of Build-IT will ship with every INFORMIX-Universal Server sold.

INFORMIX-Universal Server's support for rich data types provides the ideal repository for storing and managing Web components. It gives customers the ability to store all the components of their Web applications (such as HTML pages, Java applets, ActiveX controls, perl scripts, GIF images, or database forms) within INFORMIX-Universal Server, and use Build-IT to assemble the components into intelligent Web applications. Build-IT will kick-start use of INFORMIX-Universal Server for Web applications, because its sophisticated Import and Deployment Wizards enable instant migration of existing Web components to this platform. With the combination of Build-IT and INFORMIX-Universal Server Web applications will for the first time have all the security, backup and recovery, replication and redundancy, and controls that a database platform provides.

"Automatic migration from flat file-based Web sites to storage of rich content in Informix's Universal Server is a significant breakthrough," said Phil White, chief executive officer of Informix Software. "The joint solution of Wallop Build-IT and INFORMIX-Universal Server is the only one that instantly moves developers and all their Web components onto a robust, scaleable, team-based Web application development and deployment platform."

In addition, the ability for an entire organization to store Web components in a robust, shared repository, and to access them seamlessly throughout the development process via Build-IT brings tremendous gains in productivity to development teams, and provides the infrastructure for rapid construction of Web applications that re-use components from the hallmark applications of that enterprise. Centralized, secure storage of Web components protects and encourages the re-use of these valuable corporate assets.

"Our product vision is to focus on collaborative assembly and maintenance of large-scale Web applications," said Robert Bolt, chief executive officer of Wallop Software. "The integration of Build-IT with INFORMIX-Universal Server delivers on this vision by enabling large teams of developers across an enterprise to share tens of thousands of diverse Web components, assemble them into robust and reliable applications, easily deploy them, and maintain them over time. Without the infrastructure provided by database architectures like the INFORMIX-Universal Server and the Build-IT application assembly environment, the challenge of managing, storing and deploying these component-based Web applications becomes an impossible task," Bolt concluded.

Build-IT supports the INFORMIX-Universal Server with three levels of product integration, in addition to the product bundling arrangement:

• Build-IT will import Web components from production Web sites, and redeploy them to Universal Server. It will dynamically update all relationship information, making the migration extremely easy. Web masters will be able to use INFORMIX-Universal Server to serve some or all of the Web site content from their production sites.
• The product integration will provide storage of the Build-IT �metadata' (metadata is descriptive information about a component, such as who created it, when it was last checked out and modified and by whom, dependencies between that component and others, which applications it is part of, and more) within INFORMIX-Universal Server, providing an extremely scaleable application assembly environment, shared by development teams across the enterprise.
• The product integration will provide storage of master versions of Web components in INFORMIX-Universal Server throughout the application development process. The components are then accessed from the Build-IT environment, enabling thousands of simultaneous users, geographically dispersed around the world to modify the components using their favorite authoring tools, and integrate and assemble them into cohesive, reliable applications.

Wallop Software, Inc. is an emerging leader in Intranet application development whose mission is to provide products and services specifically designed to meet the specialized needs of corporate developers building Intranet applications. Wallop Build-IT provides a revolutionary Web application assembly environment that enables developers to integrate best-of-breed development tools and objects from the leading vendors to build, deploy, and maintain a new generation of business applications specifically designed for the Intranet. Founded in 1995, Wallop Software is headquartered at 1155 Triton Drive, Foster City, CA 94404. Wallop's home page is located at: http://www.wallop.com/default.htm.

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