Omnis Studio - Omnis History

Omnis History

• 1979: Paul Wright and Geoff Smith founded Blyth Computers Ltd (later renamed Blyth Software Ltd, then Omnis Software) in Wenhaston, Suffolk, in the UK, which became the first Apple dealership in East Anglia. Paul Wright was the nephew of Peter Harold Wright.

• 1982: Blyth released its first "Omnis" product, a database application tool for the Apple 2 designed by David Seaman and written using Apple Pascal. Omnis was also developed at the time using the UCSD Pascal environment which enabled a simple port over to other popular machines of the time. The company was later renamed Blyth Software.

• 1984: Omnis 1, 2 and 3 were released together in April 1984 as a suite of Omnis products. Omnis 1 ("the file manager"), was intended to be an easy to use way of handling simple data, i.e. non-relational data. Omnis 2 ("the information manager"), was similar to the original Omnis but had more programmability. Omnis 3 ("the database manager") was designed for programmers and business owners to build their own customized applications. At about that time Blyth Software also produced the Blyth Accounting packages based on the Omnis 3 engine to enable Accounting for small businesses. Omnis 3 was one of the first cross-platform database application tools for Apple computers and IBM compatibles running under MS-DOS.

• 1984: (May) Blyth Software Inc. was incorporated and opened offices in San Mateo, CA.

• 1985: Following the launch of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, Omnis 3 Plus was released, one of the first database generation tools for the Mac. Initially as a textual product rather than a GUI. UK headquarters moved to Mitford House in Benhall, Suffolk.

• 1987: Released Omnis Quartz, one of the first GUI databases for Microsoft Windows. Blyth Holdings Inc was created & floated on NASDAQ raising $7m.

• 1987: Released Blyth Craftware, a set of off-the-shelf business packages (vertical solutions) for the management of mailing lists, personnel, assets and stock in small businesses.

• 1989: Released Omnis 5, one of the first cross-platform development tools for building applications under Windows and Mac.

• 1992/93/94: Released Omnis 7 v1, v2, and v3 in consecutive years, an integrated development environment providing client/server access to many industry standard server databases such as Oracle, Sybase, and Informix.

• 1997: Released Omnis Studio v1, a cross-platform, development environment for Windows and Mac OS. Company was renamed Omnis Software.

• 1998: Released Omnis Studio v2, a cross-platform, multi-database development environment for Windows and Mac OS.

• 1999: Released Omnis Studio v2.1 including the Omnis Web Client or "thin client" for browsing data and applications via the Web.

• 1999: Released Omnis Studio for Linux making Omnis one of the first RAD tools available under Linux, Windows, and Mac.

• 2000: Released Omnis Studio v3. Later that year Omnis Software merged with PICK Systems to become Raining Data Corporation.

• 2004: Released Omnis Studio v4 including support for MySQL, JDBC, and Java Objects.

• 2005: Released Omnis Studio v4.1 including support for Unicode.

• 2006: Release of Omnis Studio 4.2 including native support for Mac-Intel and introduction of Web Services Component

• 2007 Release of Omnis Studio 4.3 including Windows Vista and Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) support, and component for accessing .Net objects.

• 2009 Release Omnis Studio 5.0 which includes application development for Windows Mobile based devices, and Unicode support.

• 2010 Release Omnis Studio 5.1 which includes support for the iOS platform (iPhone, iPad)

• 2012 Release Omnis Studio 5.2 which includes a JavaScript based client for rendering applications in a browser on desktop and mobile devices.