DENVER - June 8, 1999 -During his keynote address today at the forth annual Windows^® CE Developers Conference, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Business Productivity Group at Microsoft Corp., laid out a new data architecture for the Microsoft^® Windows CE operating system that will enable data access for a new range of productivity appliances. This Global Data Access architecture, based on ActiveX^® Data Objects (ADO) and OLE DB, provides a flexible and efficient database architecture that offers applications, compilers and other database components access to Microsoft and third-party data stores through a consistent set of open interfaces. The Microsoft SQL Server™ team, Sybase Inc. and Simba Technologies Inc. also announced today that they will build products based on this open architecture. The data access components for this new architecture, including OLE DB, are scheduled to be available in beta release later this year and to be distributed via the Microsoft Platform Builder for Windows CE.

"This is a critical step for Windows CE, providing a component database architecture that allows universal data integration over an enterprise's network - from mainframes to the smallest mobile devices - regardless of the data type," Muglia said. "This will allow our customers to deploy solutions that enable consistent information access any time, anywhere, over wired or wireless links."

"By supporting open interfaces consistent with the rest of the Windows family, Windows CE will become an exciting platform on which to build SQL Server-based applications," said Douglas Leland, group product manager for SQL Server at Microsoft. "With Windows CE and SQL Server, customers will be able to extend their database applications to a new range of devices, enabling knowledge workers to access critical data regardless of location."

"Support for open standards is a key element driving Sybase's leadership position in the mobile and embedded database industry," said Terry Stepien, senior vice president and general manager of Sybase's Mobile and Embedded Computing Division. "Sybase SQL Anywhere Studio's support of the Global Data Access architecture will enable a broader range of developers to quickly deploy enterprise applications for Windows CE."

"Simba provides open data access solutions for analytic and e-commerce applications," said Allan Hendrickson, vice president of product development at Simba Technologies Inc. "OLE DB is a key enabling technology, and now that it is available on Windows CE, we will be able to integrate it into new, highly innovative solutions for our customers."

OLE DB defines how to partition the functionality of a traditional relational database into logical pieces. This allows developers to use these interfaces to define anything from a simple data provider, such as a log file, all the way up to a full relational database. To enable the Global Data Access architecture for Windows CE, Microsoft will provide the following:

• An updated ADO component for Windows CE, providing additional functionality and mapping it to OLE DB
• An OLE DB Software Development Kit for Windows CE, to enable third-party companies to develop their own OLE DB Providers for Windows CE
• An OLE DB Simple Provider (OSP) for Windows CE, to make it very easy to create simple providers to access tabular data