Object oriented multimedia information system using information and multiple classes to manage data having various structure and dedicated data managers

Claim 1

A multimedia information system for managing heterogenous data having various structures and stored in different dedicated data managers, comprising: processing means programmed to manipulate said heterogenous data as logical objects of an object-oriented data model wherein said object-oriented data model comprises, a first class (21) describing methods and attribute common to all said logical objects manipulated within said processing means, and a second class (23) describing first methods for performing transaction operations between said processing means and said data managers and second methods for performing retrieval manipulation and saving operations from said processing means within said data managers, said first class further describing an attribute which references at least one instance of said second class so as to define a logical link between each logical object within said processing means and one of said data managers.