Dear Colleague: The ability to keep up with the latest trends is essential for your professional vitality. For researchers and practitioners alike, the Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies and Systems (COOTS) is a proven and invaluable source for the latest paradigms in object-oriented technologies. I invite you to join the COOTS community, and together lead the changing world.

At COOTS '99, you will meet and network with the leading developers and researchers in the object-oriented systems arena:

James Gosling of Sun Microsystems will give the keynote address. Where else but at this intentionally small conference can you hear Gosling talk, standing within 60 feet of you? It is guaranteed to be a thought-provoking discussion of how Java has changed the way we write programs today and what it can do for us in the future.

Professor Barbara Liskov of MIT will offer another enlightening talk on the second day of the technical program. An experienced researcher in the field of programming languages and object databases, she will share with us issues in controlling information flow to protect the privacy of shared information.

The COOTS technical program is the venue for learning about advanced R&D results from the leading universities and industrial labs. This year the technical program is stronger than ever. The high quality of submissions allowed the program committee to select the very best papers representing the latest advances and creative new directions in hot areas such as Java, COM, and CORBA. The two days of reports of research and experience cover a wide range of topics, including:

	Using and enhancing Java in realistic settings;
	Providing essential qualities of service in distributed object-oriented systems;
	Extending CORBA and COM to meet evolving user needs;
	Managing enterprise-scale applications with object-oriented techniques;
	Leveraging re-usable design knowledge to enhance programmer productivity;
	Modifying the object runtime environment to meet evolving user needs;
	What to look for when objects meet database technology;
	How to develop performance-critical distributed OO applications;
	Realistic, thought-provoking treatment of design patterns, meta-object protocols, interception techniques, and virtual machine performance issues;
	How to manage enterprise-scale large object-oriented applications;
	Java, Java, and more Java.

On May 3-4, an excellent set of tutorials is offered. Attendees from previous years tell us that the COOTS tutorials are the best in the business. Led by well-known experts and educators, these tutorials will introduce or update you on topics such as: frameworks, patterns, and components; efficient C++ programming; Java Beans, distributed Java, and the Jini(TM) platform; CORBA servers; COM and COM+; scalable ODBMS applications; and performance issues in OO applications.

On May 7th, an Advanced Topics Workshop takes place. Joe Sventek, Hewlett-Packard Labs, chairs this year's workshop with the timely theme of "Validating the Composition and/or Execution of Component-Based Systems." Attendance is limited and based on acceptance of a position paper. (Presenters within the regular conference may also attend.) See page 9 for more information.

Object-oriented programming has become the mainstay of programming, and if there is one conference that will give you an edge in this area, I am sure it is COOTS. I look forward to seeing you in San Diego during May 3-7, 1999.

On behalf of the Program Committee,

Murthy Devarakonda, Program Chair
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

PS: Remember to sign up by April 9, 1999 to save up to $100.00. See Registration information.