CDE2 platforms and availability (was CASE 5.1)

I've been following a CASE 5.1/CDE2 availability thread for a little while, and thought this needs some official clarification.

What we have announced is that CDE2 contains three product families:

CDE2 CASE
CDE2 Tools
CDE2 Data Access

CDE2 CASE will be available for Windows, NT, and "Windows95" (or 96 or ...). We are investigating ways to make this release available on other GUI platforms but at this point are not willing to commit to this.

CDE2 Tools will generally be available for full use on all GUI platforms, and for deployment use for all GUI and character mode platforms. This means you will be able to develop with ASTOUNDINGLY cool new development environments on MS-Windows (and descendents), Macintosh, and Motif NATIVE, as well as OS/2 in Windows emulation. You will be able to deploy in all those environments, plus in character mode. Applications generated from CDE2 CASE will run in all these environments as well. There may be one or two products in the CDE2 Tools family which do not fit this profile, but Forms 4.5, Reports 2.5, Graphics 2.5, Procedure Builder 1.5, Programmatic Interfaces, and Open Client Adapter should all be available as per this profile. Translation Manager may be Windows-only, but then again we may make it available cross-platform as well.

CDE2 Data Access, the end user products in CDE2, currently consists of Browser 2.0, Data Query 4.0, and Oracle Glue. Glue will be available for Windows and Mac only. Data Query and Browser will be available for all GUI platforms, with native Windows (and descendents), Macintosh, and Motif. Data Query will also be available for character mode.

CDE2 CASE is planned for March/April availability (production) on Windows. CDE2 Tools is a staggered release; Programmatic Interfaces are available now, Translation Manager will be available for CDE2 later than the other Tools, and the remainder of the announced products (those listed above) in the CDE2 Tools family will be available (production) on Windows in January or February. CDE2 Data Access will also be staggered; Browser will be available in January or February and the other announced products (those listed above) will follow. Other platforms for those products which will support them should follow in 30 to 90 days (although some lower priority Motif/character mode platforms will generally lag that). We have not announced the portability schedule for the various other platforms yet, so please do not ask me for details.

I hope this helps clear (rather than stir ;-) some things up. Thanks!

• Dennis Moore, Senior Director, Worldwide CDE Product Marketing, etcetcetc