Back to Newsletter Archive
E V E N T S
12/02 - db4o Beginners' Training - New York, NY
12/05 - db4o Beginners' Training - Austin, TX
12/14 - db4o Beginners' Training - Toronto, Canada
12/15 - Roadshow - Hong Kong, China
12/16 - db4o Beginners' Training - San Francisco, CA
1/18/06 - Roadshow - Sydney, Australia
To watch the free, archived Webinars "How to Get the Most Out of db4o for Your Applications," follow this link.
A R T I C L E S
-- VERSION 5.0 WITH NATIVE QUERIES AVAILABLE --
We're proud to announce availability of db4o Version 5.0 for Java and .NET, introducing "Native Queries," which express database queries in native semantics of the programming language. This eliminates the need for developers to learn additional non-mainstream APIs such as JDO, OQL, or SODA and initiates a new level of productivity for writing truly object-oriented software applications. db4o Version 5.0 is available as a production-ready version for free download.
Native Queries (NQ) reflect the current industry trend to construct data access as a native part of the object-oriented application, rather than using string-based, non-native access. Thus they put an end to the 15-year-long debate about which additional query language to use in creating an OO query API. NQs simply use the existing, widely adopted standard - the programming language itself - to access the database. As the first player to endorse this simple yet groundbreaking concept, db4objects underlines its leadership in providing the most native, object-oriented persistence solution on the market.
Native Queries are based on Safe Queries as proposed by Prof. William Cook at the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in May of 2005. The concept of compliance with existing standards eliminates the need for new standards such as ODMG's OQL and Java's JDO1, which have been disbanded and/or failed to see mass adoption. NQs thus remove a major roadblock for mainstream adoption of object-oriented persistence solutions (object databases, object-relational mappers) - similar to what SQL did for relational databases.
"With Version 5, db4objects is pushing the seamless object-oriented development experience even further," says Stephen O'Grady, senior analyst at Redmonk. "When developers are not required to transition out of an object oriented environment and the language of their choice, they're likely to be far more productive. Consequently, several vendors - including Microsoft with its LINQ project - are seeking to break down the barriers between non-native APIs and the programming language on top of it, by allowing querying in native language - an approach that could become popular to access databases from OO programming environments."
db4o Version 5's Native Queries express database queries in native semantics of the programming language, e.g., in Java, C#, or VB.NET. This makes development significantly more productive than using incumbent string-based APIs (such as SQL, JDO, OQL), because developers have 100% typesafe, 100% refactorable, and 100% object-oriented access to their data layer.
-- MANDALA'S SMARTPHONE SOFTWARE FOR MASS MARKETS - SUCCESS STORY --
db4objects has added another case study on Mandala IT to its growing number of success stories, available for free download.
Mandala IT recently launched Mandala Notebook, a new pioneering consumer software product for SmartPhones that allows users to easily manage notes, and edit and share documents of all sizes on a small-screen display. Initially based on the Symbian UIQ platform, Mandala Notebook software is now available through all major online distribution channels for mobile software packages, such as Handango.
Mass market distribution means 100% zero-administration requirements and a completely self-contained application, which puts a particular burden on the underlying database. The challenge of developing for small-screen devices called for an easy-to-deploy object database that could run with the smallest memory footprint. "db4o makes storing complex data structures easy. This would not be possible with others systems," says Mandala CTO Tomasz Ignasiak.
Behind the scenes, Mandala relies heavily on db4o's manual activation and deactivation of objects. This allows memory to be allocated and freed in cases where automatic methods would consume too much memory. For example, if a specific page with a very large image is loaded, Mandala can manually de-allocate once the page is closed, without having to wait for garbage collection. "This is an interesting and useful feature that we haven't seen in any other database system," Ignasiak says.
CEO Dr. Sean O'Donoghue: "db4o was without doubt technically the best of the components we worked with. In our development, our struggle was always with other issues, the OS or the implementation of Java, never with db4o... We are delighted to have such a competent partner, both technically and business-wise."
-- db4o CUSTOMERS IN YOUR INDUSTRY, ON YOUR PLATFORM --
We are often asked in what industries and on what platforms db4o is most used and why. In response, we have now created a new db4o "Customer" section on our website that showcases the use of db4o in six different industry groups ...
- Transportation including automotive, railways, and aerospace
- Networks including communication, energy, power utilities, oil, and gas
- Natural sciences including geotech, biotech, healthcare, and pharma
- Industrial including factory floor automation, logistics, and SCADA systems
- Consumer including consumer electronics and packaged software
- Enterprise including in-house and customized software
...and on four different platforms
- Devices and equipment
- Mobile devices including smartphones
- Desktops
- Servers including web services
We want to thank all customers that contributed to this great, new resource.
Here are some of the juiciest, new sound-bites that we don't want to miss sharing with you:
"With db4o, we can significantly reduce our development costs, improve time to market, and maintain the highest quality. Without db4o's ease of use we would be still struggling with SQL code and trying to get our product to work."
--Ilpo Juvander, CEO
"I believe I shaved at least four months worth of development using the object database approach, as I know how long it takes to engineer the equivalent solution using traditional technology... Before I settled for db4o, I evaluated Apache Derby, MySQL, Daffodil One$DB, Sqlite, and Berkeley."
--David Tran, Owner
"The database has been nothing short of amazing. Just the ability to modify the structure and it automatically updates the versions is worth its weight in gold."
--Victor Boba, CEO
The latter prompted us to think whether we should make db4o more heavyweight to increase our revenues... :-)
--------
We appreciate your feedback, you can email us. Please let us know what you are thinking, and how we can help you. And please don't forget to share your db4o success stories with us!
With best regards
The db4objects team.
www.db4o.com
newsletter@db4o.com
Phone +1 (650) 577-2340
1900 S Norfolk Street, Suite 350
San Mateo, CA 94403 (USA)