December 3, 1996 6:15 PM ET

CA polishes Opal for mainframe multimedia
By Maria Seminerio

Computer Associates International Inc. today rolled out its Opal application integration and multimedia authoring environment for mainframe systems. The product is targeted at businesses using "dumb terminal" legacy systems, enabling them to add certain PC capabilities, CA officials said. The environment was developed by Infresco Corp., an independent business unit of CA that also was launched today, company officials said. "Opal allows clients to create full-blown multimedia interfaces as an alternative to standard windowing interfaces," said Marc Sokol, CA's senior vice president of advanced technology. "This allows organizations to develop highly individualized business systems that reflect today's technology, all without any changes to their workhorse mainframe applications." The environment enables creation of editing controls, list boxes, animation, and point-and-click audio and video interfaces, officials said. "Developers currently spend a great deal of time in two labor-intensive areas: user interface coding and debugging," Sokol said. "Opal recaptures the time lost in these areas, reducing the cost and effort associated with this phase of software production. The result is faster application development, rapid execution, fewer bugs and more satisfied users." Opal also allows users to deploy a single multimedia interface to retrieve data from multiple servers and data sources for viewing on a single screen, officials said. Its applications are powered by CA's OpenIngres/Desktop database, and it supports multiple host environments including IBM-compatible mainframes and Unix systems. Opal is available for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 and is priced at $995. CA, based in Islandia, N.Y., can be reached at www.cai.com/. Copyright(c) 1996 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company is prohibited. PC Week and the PC Week logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC Week Online and the PC Week Online logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Send mail to PC Week