Database Supports Mac OS X

InterSystems readies and enterprise-level database for Apple's Unix-based operating system.

This holiday season, InterSystems Corp. plans to give Mac users an enterprise-level database.

The Cambridge, Mass., company, one of the larger makers of embedded databases, on Monday will announce that it plans to take advantage of Apple Computer Inc.s push into the enterprise by rolling out a Mac OS X version of its Caché database.

Caché features an advanced object database as well as robust SQL and a multidimensional database engine. Features of the Mac OS X version will include real-time data analytics with new transactional bit map index technology that will provide the query performance benefits of advanced indexing technology with update performance equal to that of traditional indexes, InterSystems officials said.

Caché for Mac OS X will also come with support for Web services and is compatible with both .Net and Java Web service frameworks. The software automates bean-managed persistence easing developers work with Java Enterprise Edition.

In addition, Caché will ship with its Enterprise Cache Protocol software, which includes a new distributed concurrency engine and support for massive distributed cache memory and which will enable better performance and scalability for multi-server configurations, officials said.

Experts say that these enterprise-level features will be a big help for Macintosh users, many of whom have made do with applications like FileMaker Inc.s FileMaker Pro database software. FileMaker while "very good for its kind of software," was originally designed as a desktop database and lacks such enterprise features as Caché promises to bring to the Mac, according to Wayne Kernochan, senior vice president of Aberdeen Group, a Boston market research firm.

A roadblock to an enterprise-level Mac database has been the fact that Mac operating systems have been more difficult to develop on or customize than other environments, Kernochan said. Mac OS X is more amenable to development and customizing, he added.

Caché for Mac OS X is due out in early 2003. Pricing is expected to start at $200 for a single-user version and at about $1,000 for a multi-user configuration.

This story was changed from its original posting to more accurately characterize the novelty of the Caché database.

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