Blue World Communications Inc. on Tuesday announced Lasso Professional 7, a major upgrade to its Web application server software.
Lasso Professional 7 (LP7) features an embedded MySQL 4 database server, with a full commercial license included. The server is embedded into the Lasso Server application and provides improvements over the MySQL database server included in LP6, according to the developers, with better performance, support for transactions tighter security and easier installation and maintenance.
LP7 also gains Unicode compliance, so it now supports hundreds of languages and character sets. It can also support localized formats for numbers, dates and currencies. A new byte-code compiler, algorithms and architecture add up for improved performance, as well.
SOAP, WSDL and XML support has been added. With the addition of SOAL, Lasso can now act as a Web services host. The new XML implementation offers a big performance boost for small and large documents alike, and uses memory more efficiently. The new version has simplified and enhanced the use PDF tags, and also supports caching tags to improve database performance. LP7 adds the ability to manipulate images, as well, including resizing, thumbnail creation, watermarking and format conversion.
LP7 also supports Apache 2 on Mac OS X. Object-based file manipulation increases performance when the same file is accessed repeatedly; network and database communications have been improved; load-balancing and clustering is supported across multiple LP7 servers; and many enhancements have been made to maintenance and administration.
LP7 supports Mac OS X v10.2 and v10.3 (the forthcoming “Panther” release). It’s been recompiled with GCC v3.3 to provide optimizations for PowerPC G5 systems, as well.
Blue World noted that Lasso Professional 7 is undergoing extensive testing. Users interested in getting early access can do so by joining the Lasso Partner Alliance.
Lasso Professional 7 is scheduled for an October, 2003 release. The electronic download version will cost US$999. Upgrades from Lasso Professional 6 and certain other Blue World products are available for reduced prices; visit the Web site for details. Upgrades to the new version are free for users who purchased Lasso Professional 6 from September 9, 2003 to the release date.
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