APPLE COMPUTER RAMPED up its enterprise offerings Tuesday, adding Web services support to Version 5.2 of its application development environment, WebObjects.

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The Cupertino, Calif.-based company also upgraded Mac OS X Server, Version 10.2 with a journaling component for recovery of file systems in case of unanticipated shutdowns.

Expanding on its capability to create Java objects that can be deployed on multiple systems, developers will not have to write low-level SOAP calls in the Web services domain, according to Brian Croll, senior director of software for Apple Worldwide Marketing. Support for Web services creates an abstraction layer between the developer and low-level Web services coding.

Croll compared working with the SOAP interface to giving tedious and detailed instructions on how to get from one location to another.

"It's like telling someone how to get to the store by saying, 'Stand up, make a left, take three steps to the door, then make a right &'"

Version 5.2 will give Web application designers the added ability to create "code-free generation" of Web services, Croll added. "The trick is knowing which object to build," he said.

Version 5.2 is also the first version to offer support for Sybase enterprise databases for PCs and Macs. Using a built-in plug-in for Sybase, developers can build an application without having a great deal of experience with the database, according to Darryl Salas, partner program manager for Sybase in Dublin, Calif.

"You don't have to set up connection strings and parameters. It does it all for you," Salas said.

Version 5.2 runs on either a Mac OS X or Solaris platform and will work with any J2EE application server.

Apple is also upgrading the enterprise-level capabilities of Mac OS X 10.2 by adding a file system journaling feature to the OS. The journaling component tracks and logs every write to the disk so that if there is an unscheduled shut down of the operating system, the journal creates a separate file to allow the OS to return the file system to a known state.

By keeping a continuous record of all transactions, the OS can reinstate the file system without requiring a consistency check on the entire file system when the system is restarted.

"If you didn't have a journal file system and the power goes off, using standard recovery could take hours if the file system is big enough," Croll said.

File System Journaling is backward compatible with earlier versions of the Mac OS Extended file system.

Both WebOjectes 5.2 and the upgrade to Mac OS X 10.2 are shipping this week. Pricing for WebObjects 5.2 is $699.