Re: State of Oracle, A/UX and PowerMacs and PowerOpen

In article <37c5vr$bbl_at_news.uni-c.dk> Carsten Pedersen, carstenp_at_inet.uni-c.dk writes:

> I would very much like to get some more info on the PowerMac situation.
> [...]
> We're about to convert our application to
> native code, but there doesn't seem to be much point if SQLNet is
> incompatible with the PowerMacs. If this is actually the case, WHEN
 will
> there be fix?

Carsten,

Since I am sure that you are not the only one with these types of questions, I am including our Statement of Direction concerning the Apple Macintosh platform below as released to us on 10/4/94. For those of you who received this Statement of Direction from us prior to this date will probably notice a couple of additions.

I hope this information is useful. If you have any questions concerning this Statement of Direction, you may feel free to direct them at myself. I
do not guarantee that I will know the answer, but I will do my best to address any questions I can.

--Doug Bitting
  Oracle Worldwide Technical Support
  Apple Desktop Products Group
  Disclaimer: Whatever it was I said, Oracle probably didn't mean it!

• 8< snip here 8< ---- Statement of Direction Oracle Server Products Apple October 4, 1994

Platforms covered:

* APPLE MacOS 68k Platform 
* APPLE A/UX 68k Platform 
* APPLE MacOS PowerPC Platform 
* APPLE NetWare PowerPC Platform 
* APPLE PowerOpen PowerPC Platform 
 
 
 

Apple Technology Directions  

Client Platforms  

Since its introduction in March of this year, the Power Macintosh (Macintosh OS on PowerPC systems) has gained significant attention in both
the trade press and the marketplace. Based on the PowerPC chip, a RISC-based architecture developed by a consortium of IBM, Apple, and Motorola, the Power Macintosh represents a major technology breakthrough for Apple.  

The first Power Macintoshes, the 6100, 7100, and 8100, are positioned as mid-range business computers. They incorporate the PowerPC 601 chip; with
speeds ranging from two to six times faster than the Quadra 800, these Power Macintoshes have a tremendous price/performance advantage over comparable Intel-based competitors. To date sales have been strong, with over 300,000 units shipped by the end of second quarter, and are expected to continue to grow throughout the year, with over 1 million expected to ship by year end.  

Apple plans to ship its Power Macintosh PowerBooks and Duos, based on the PowerPC 603+ chip, in early 1995. The 603+ chip is designed specifically for use in portables; it will use one-third the power of the 601 chip and will include three reduced-power sleep states. The next generation chip after the 601 will be the 604; Apple plans to release Power Macintosh systems based on the 604 chip in mid-to-late 1995. The 604 chip will perform at one and a half to two times the speed of the 601 chip. The first units of the 604 chip have recently been produced and will initially
be available in 100MHz versions with slower and faster versions available in the future.  

Apple plans to include in future systems successor generations of the PowerPC chip. The 620 is slated to be the successor to the 604. There are unconfirmed reports of another chip, the 615, that will include Intel microcode embedded on the chip, enabling Intel-based applications (read Microsoft Windows applications) to run unmodified at speeds reportedly exceeding that of a Pentium.  

Server Platforms  

In the server arena, Apple announced in May 1995 its new PowerPC Workgroup
Servers: the WS 6150, the WS 8150, and the WS 9150. Currently, the new workgroup servers run only the Macintosh OS with services such as AppleShare, PowerShare, File Servers and Print Servers running in emulation mode. Native PowerPC versions of these services aren't planned until sometime next year. Additionally, Apple plans two other operating systems, PowerOpen and Novell NetWare, to run natively on Apple's PowerPC systems in the future.  

PowerOpen, Apple's version of UNIX, is based on IBM's industry-standard AIX 4.1. It is slated as the upgrade path for current A/UX customers and should be available sometime in mid 1995.  

A native PowerPC version of Novell's NetWare 4 is scheduled for release in
early 1995. It should run twice as fast as NetWare on today's 486 servers
and will present a clear price/performance winner for Apple. Unfortunately, the installation and maintenance of the software is expected
to be no easier on the workgroup servers than on Intel based machines.  

Application Availability  

Applications may be written natively for the Power Macintosh or, alternatively, applications written for 68-K-based systems may run on the Power Macintosh in emulation mode. The performance of native applications
is significantly greater, but making the products available in emulation mode generally can be accomplished more quickly.  

To run on the Power Macintosh, applications must be written to one of Apple's two technologies for handling sharable libraries. These are the Shared Library Manager (SLM) and the Code Fragment Manager (CFM). These two technologies are directly comparable to Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) found in the Windows environment. SLM was designed for 68K-based MacOS systems; however, SLM-compatible applications will run unmodified on Power
Macintosh systems in emulation mode. CFM, on the other hand, was designed
for the Power Macintosh; CFM-compatible applications will run natively on the Power Macintosh today. Apple plans to make CFM available on 68K-based
MacOS system in Q1 1995, at which time CFM-compatible applications will run natively on both platforms. Because of this ability to support applications natively on both platforms, CFM is clearly the preferred choice for future Apple application development.     

One of the initial limiting factors for the acceptance of the Power Macintosh has been the availability of native Power Macintosh applications. Many applications run in emulation mode without changes, but their performance is somewhat limited. However, momentum has started to build and popular software packages such as WordPerfect 3.0, FreeHand 4.0, PageMaker 5.0a and CodeWarrior currently run natively. In addition, Microsoft is already shipping Excel, and plans to ship FoxPro, Word, Works
and PowerPoint shortly.

ORACLE PowerPC Plans  

ORACLE On MacOS/PowerPC (Power Macintosh)  

Existing ORACLE Server products are not supported on Power Macintosh!  

All current Oracle applications use our proprietary loadable drivers, rather than SLM or CFM, to share common code. Due to incompatibilities between the MacOS on the PowerPC and these Oracle loadable drivers, customers will experience problems running existing Oracle applications on
the Power Macintosh. As a result, no 68K-based Oracle products are supported on the Power Macintosh unless they have been made SLM-compatible
or CFM-compatible.

SLM-Compatible Versions Scheduled  

As an interim solution, Oracle plans to release SLM-compatible versions of
a number of products that will be licensed to run on both the 68K-based systems natively and on the Power Macintoshes in emulation mode. The timeframe for the product releases is as follows:  

    Product Release Date

    SQL*Net TCP/IP v1.5 December 1994 
    SQL*Net AppleTalk v1.5  December 1994 
    SQL*Net version 2.0.15  December 1994 
    SQL*Net TCP/IP adapter v2.0.15  December 1994 
    SQL*Net SPX/IPX adapter v2.0.15 TBD 
    SQL*Net AppleTalk adapter v2.0.15   TBD 
    SQL*Plus v3.1.3 December 1994 

These SLM versions are an intermediate step to enable customers to make use of these products immediately on the Power Macintosh; once Oracle makes its CFM-compatible versions of these products available, these SLM versions will be obsoleted within six months of the release of CFM versions.

CFM-Compatible Versions Scheduled  

Oracle's plans are to provide during 1995 CFM-compatible versions of the Oracle7 server, and Oracle7 standalone database, Pro*C, SQL*Plus, SQL*Net and related utilities. These products will run natively on the Power Macintosh immediately. Once Apple extends CFM support to the 68K-based MacOS systems, all of these products, with the exception of the Oracle7 databases, will have the capability and be licensed to run on the 68K-based MacOS systems as well. The CFM versions of the Oracle7 database
(both standalone and server) will not be licensed for the 68K-based MacOS systems, as they have been written specifically to the Power Macintosh to optimize performance.  

While Oracle will therefore license the Pro*C, SQL*Plus and SQL*Net CFM products on both the Power Macintosh and the 68K indefinitely, customers should be aware of our (and Apple's) long term direction of supporting the
Power Macintosh exclusively, and not consider the 68K a long term solution.

ORACLE On NetWare/PowerPC

Oracle is currently evaluating the business opportunity of a port of the Oracle server to NetWare on the PowerPC. At this point, there are no plans for such a port. If at some point real opportunity is perceived, Oracle will strongly consider the port.

ORACLE On PowerOpen/PowerPC

Oracle is currently evaluating the business opportunity for porting the Oracle server to PowerOpen on the PowerPC. At this point, there is no scheduled release; however, Oracle will continue to monitor the market requirement for Oracle on PowerOpen. Software written for PowerOpen should run on all PowerOpen platforms.

Kit Availability Schedule

    Pro*C v1.6 (CodeWarrior support)                    January 1995 
        (MPW, Symantec possibly supported later) 

    SQL*Net TCP/IP v1.5 January 1995  

    Oracle7 for Power Macintosh [standalone version] February 1995

        RDBMS, RSFs, Utilities v7.1 
        SQL*Net v2.0, TCP/IP adapter v2.0 
 

    SQL*Plus v3.1 February 1995  

    SQL*Net v2.x (and TCP/IP & AppleTalk adapters) April 1995  

    Oracle Workgroup Server for Power Macintosh         August 1995 
        RDBMS, RSFs, Utilities v7.x 
        SQL*Net v2.x, TCP/IP adapter v2.x 

    There are no plans to offer an ODBC driver for the Power Macintosh.  

68K-Based Obsolescence Plans

Over the next year, existing Oracle products designed exclusively for 68K-based systems will be discontinued. Specifically, Oracle will discontinue existing Oracle server products on the 68k-based Apple MacOS and A/UX platforms. Additionally, Oracle will discontinue SQL*Net DECNet,
SQL*Net Async, SQL*Net 3270, and Forms 3.0 Runtime. The last release of the MacOS kits includes Oracle v6.0.36. The last release of the Oracle7 Server V7.0 for A/UX kit will include either 7.0.15 or 7.0.16. The sale of
all the above 68K-based kits and products will cease upon shipment of the Oracle Workgroup Server for Power Macintosh, slated for August 1995.

Migration Options

Oracle will assist customers to migrate from Apple's 68K-based systems to reasonable alternatives. The following migration paths for the four Apple platform kits are offered:

    Oracle7 Server V7.0 for A/UX
    Destination: Oracle Workgroup Server for Power Macintosh     Availability: August 1995

        or
    Destination: AIX PowerPC
    Availability: Immediately

        or
    Destination: Oracle7 Server V7.0 for OS/2     Availability: Immediately

        or
    Destination: Oracle7 Server V7.0 for Windows NT     Availability: Immediately       

Oracle RDBMS V2.0.2 for Apple Macintosh

    Destination: Oracle7 for Power Macintosh     Availability: February 1995

        or
    Destination: Oracle7 RDBMS 7.0 for OS/2     Availability: Immediately

        or
    Destination: Oracle7 RDBMS 7.0 for Windows NT     Availability: Immediately

        or
    Destination: Oracle7 RDBMS 7.0 for Windows 3.1     Availability: November 1994  

    Oracle Server V1.1 for Apple Macintosh     Destination: Oracle Workgroup Server for Power Macintosh     Availability: August 1995

        or
    Destination: Oracle7 Server 7.0 for OS/2     Availability: Immediately

        or
    Destination: Oracle7 Server 7.0 for Windows NT     Availability: Immediately  

    Oracle Tools V2.0.2 Client for Apple Macintosh     Destination: [Power Macintosh] Components will be available unbundled

    Availability: Oracle Glue (SLM version) - October/November 1994

        Pro*C v1.6 - January 1995 
        SQL*Plus v3.1.3 - February 1995 
        Utilities - February 1995 
 

    Oracle for 4th Dimension
    Destination: Oracle Glue (SLM version)     Availability: October/November 1994

For customers with current support contracts, an upgrade kit will be provided at no charge, and the remaining portion of the support contract will be transferred to the new platform.

Additionally, Oracle Worldwide Support will offer support continuance for these products at standard support rates (no surcharge) until the migration to an Apple platform is available.

Availability Of Other ORACLE Products On Power Macintosh

Oracle is anticipating making a CFM-compatible port of the CDE2 product set available in Q1 1995. These will be supported on both the Power Macintosh and 68K-based systems. There are no plans for SLM-compatible versions CDE products to be available in the interim.

Oracle is anticipating making a CFM-compatible port of the Oracle Office Client available. No date is yet available. There are no plans for an SLM-compatible version of the Office Client product to be available.

Media

Consistent with Oracle's emerging corporate policy of releasing products on CD-ROM as the primary medium, all server products will be released primarily on CD-ROM. Diskette packages will be sold separately at an additional charge.

Additionally, with the exception of the Installation and Users Guide, all product kits will include online documentation only. Printed copies of the documentation will be available at additional charge.

OpenDoc

One of the most important recent trends in the industry is the emergence of component document architectures. These are moving the focus of desktop computing from applications to documents; instead of having a document written to one monolithic application, documents will increasingly incorporate components, or parts, from multiple specialized applications. The benefit will be greater application development flexibility and much better quality applications.

There are currently two competing component document architectures; OpenDoc and OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) 2.0.

OpenDoc is promoted by an industry consortium named Component Integration Labs, Inc. (CIL), a non-profit association promoting OpenDoc technology, comprised of a number of major industry players including Apple, IBM, Novell, Adobe and Taligent. As such, it will be available initially on the Apple Power Macintosh, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and AIX, and is likely to remain available on a broader array of platforms than is OLE 2.0. Technology-wise, OpenDoc is superior to OLE 2.0. OpenDoc promises a
simpler and easier user interface with superior functionality. Additionally, OpenDoc will have lower memory requirements.

OLE 2.0, on the other hand, is available today whereas OpenDoc is currently in Beta Test. Additionally, OLE 2.0 is aggressively promoted by
it's developer, Microsoft, and thus holds status as an immediate de facto standard.  

It is unclear at this juncture which will emerge as a/the dominant standard. Oracle's position is that OpenDoc represents a potentially significant alternative to OLE 2.0 As a result, Oracle will develop to both object technologies without preference for the indefinite future.

Thanks.

DESKTOP PRODUCTS DIVISION Received on Wed Oct 12 1994 - 14:48:05 CET