New Release, V8.20 Empress RDBMS V8.20 is now available. Advanced features include data streaming, forksafe capabilities, threadsafe capabilities and more.     A key strength of the Empress RDBMS has been its ability to handle all kinds of data types. In order to tune database applications for optimum performance in managing and manipulating bulk data types, V8.20 allows for data streaming. Users can retrieve, insert, and update bulk data in conveniently smaller chunks via data streaming.     V8.20 also enables users to write programs in the MR, MX, or Embedded SQL interfaces that can execute multiple, subsequent initialization routines. A single parent process that already uses Empress calls can now spawn several child processes that can execute Empress calls within them.     Users of V8.20 also have the ability to write multithreaded applications in a threadsafe manner using MR, MX and embedded SQL. The multithreaded applications can have multiple active connections to a server. This results in greater efficiency. Also, the use of multiple threads in an application may result in faster running programs.     In addition to the Perl and Tcl/tk interfaces that ship with Empress Hypermedia, Empress now provides PHP Interface support. This scripting language can generate HTML documents from scripts. PHP can operate as a CGI, as FastCGI, or an Apache module. The PHP Interface allows a system to link to the Empress RDBMS via its ODBC Interface. continue in page 2.

Focus Forecast Report Interface Empress Focuses on the Internet Sound evaluation of choices is what takes a software developer's great idea from an abstract vision to a valuable product. For Pivot Technologies, the choice to use the Empress RDBMS for its commercially available sales automation software consisted of several factors.     The application, called Focus, provides a graphical user interface for a client Web browser which accesses the Empress database over a network.     Focus not only references salespeople, current leads and current customers, but also incorporates a wealth of other capabilities. It can track the evolution of sales opportunities from leads to customers, classify opportunities based on a company's own methodology and track information about competitor's activities during the sales cycle.     In addition, users can create and track "To Do" lists. They can also attach email messages and documents created with word processing, spreadsheet and other office-type software directly to sales opportunities. Plus, automatically generated email messages or digital pages can be received when information in a specified account is altered.     Moreover, Focus provides one comprehensive location for viewing data about all sales opportunities. This enables a unified sales effort that effectively involves all relevant internal company staff members.     For bringing Focus to life, Pivot chose to use the Empress RDBMS and the Empress Hypermedia V3.0 Toolkit, Empress's Internet Application Development Toolkit. Developers of Focus are familiar with the Empress RDBMS and have more than five years of experience with it. continue in page 2.

For information on the products or companies covered in this newsletter, please contact Empress Software by telephone, fax, or e-mail, using any of the numbers listed below:

Empress Software Inc. 6401 Golden Triangle Drive Greenbelt, Maryland USA 20770 Tel: (301) 220-1919 Fax: (301) 220-1997 E-mail: sales@empress.com

Empress Software Inc. 3100 Steeles Avenue East Markham, Ontario Canada L3R 8T3 Tel: (905) 513-8888 Fax: (905) 513-1668 E-mail: sales@empress.com