Title : RISC software gets 88open Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 88op Date : Mar 6, 1989 Text: BURLINGAME, Calif. _ A 29-member consortium organized last year to promote Motorola, Inc.'s reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture announced 26 software packages last week to accompany the first RISC-based hardware products from Data General Corp., Sanyo Business Systems Corp. and Icon International, Inc. Promising rigorous enforcement of its binary compatibility standard (BCS), 88open Consortium Ltd. has placed its seal of approval on the products, which range from operating systems (including Pick Systems' Pick) to compilers, relational databases and office automation. Nearly all the products are scheduled for availability in late 1989, although DG and Sanyo are announcing hardware products that are expected this summer (see story page 1). Motorola is leveraging its RISC architecture through the consortium, while RISC rivals Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Mips Computer Systems, Inc. are using more informal software development channels _ Sun through third parties and Mips through an independent software company that serves as an intermediary for third-party developers. Roger Cady, director of 88open, said that Motorola is expected to be far ahead of Sun and Mips in market share by 1993, according to research conducted by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Infocorp. However, Infocorp analyst Jeanette Sill-Holeman said that prediction depended on Motorola's chip being accepted as the RISC architecture for Apple Computer, Inc.'s hardware. ``If not, they'd end up a rather distant third,'' she said. Eyes peeled The consortium is eyeing the shrink-wrapped Unix software market for Motorola RISC computers, much like the current market for off-the-shelf MS-DOS software for personal computers, Cady said. ``We'll use Open Software Foundation standards as appropriate,'' said Bob Anundson, executive director of 88open. The consortium has developed BSC for Motorola's chips and has worked with AT&T to develop a Unix application binary interface, according to Ed Staiano, executive vice-president of Motorola. The consortium's technical staff, Anundson explained, audits software compliance to its standards and will issue its seal of approval for software that passes the certification program. By J.A. Savage, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Executive information sys Author : Amy Cortese Source : CW Comm FileName: eistrend Date : Mar 6, 1989 Text: The executive of 1992 will be armed with the right information to make better, more informed decisions, a study conducted by International Data Corp. (IDC) suggests. The study shows that the use of executive information systems (EIS) is on the rise. Executives surveyed by the Framingham, Mass.-based market research firm indicated that EIS is gaining importance and is increasingly needed. EIS will be the fastest growing segment of the overall decision support system (DSS) market, IDC predicts. DSS assists in management problem solving by using techniques such as modeling, data management, forecasting, reporting and graphics. EIS is targeted at high-level management and was designed to provide timely, pertinent information to aid in decision making, thereby eliminating the need to sift through lengthy reports. According to IDC estimates, the EIS market will mushroom from just $1 million in 1984 to $115 million in 1992, outpacing other DSS areas such as financial modeling, spreadsheet and analysis and other application software. However, the financial modeling category will also grow, retaining its stature as the largest DSS submarket. The aggregate DSS market is predicted to grow to more than $450 million by 1992. EIS represented only 11% of the DSS market in 1987. By 1992, IDC predicts that it will make up a full quarter of that market. EIS is still fairly new to many executives. While sales of EIS packages are reportedly mounting, they are slowly being put to use by busy executives. (See story, page 31). An IDC survey of executive ratings of personal computer functions showed that executives still favor spreadsheets and financial modeling over EIS. But advances in technology are making EIS easier for executives to use and learn, which should speed the technology's adoption. EIS' bright future is further evidenced in a forthcoming IDC survey of 500 IBM sites, in which slightly more than half of the respondents indicated that they had EIS installed or that they planned to install such systems. AMY CORTESE <<<>>> Title : Inside lines Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: liner227 Date : Mar 6, 1989 Text: The winds are blowing around DEC . . . and people who are hugging trees may find their shelter blown down. That was the message Ken Olsen delivered during a mid-February product marketing confab, according to reports filtering down through DEC. The major corporate goal, according to the Decvine, is financial growth of 20% annually, no employment growth and price-cutting of 30% during the next three years. Among other tidbits making the rounds: Olsen, catching up to opinion outside the company, seemed unimpressed by DEC's marketing efforts and wants ``innovation, leadership and aggressiveness;'' DEC will develop a strategy to educate the Big Eight accounting firms about DEC products; and VMS can be ported to a reduced instruction set computing (RISC)-based VAX. We'll withhold judgment. A DEC official refuted last week's Inside Lines item that said DEC was negotiating with Tandy Corp. to build a Micro Channel-based PC. However, the source of the information maintains that the DEC official made the statement, adding that ``DEC did not want to close out its customers from Micro Channel products.'' Server stew thickens. In its partnership deal with Microsoft and Sybase, Ashton-Tate is reportedly enjoined from selling any OS/2-based multiuser database management system other than the SQL Server all three are developing. But that will not stop Ashton-Tate from hedging its bets by supporting a server from Interbase, in which it has an equity stake. The server will be distributed by Cognos. A Novell approach for Gupta. Today, Novell and Gupta Technologies are expected to announce a joint marketing and technology agreement that will give Novell a two-pronged database strategy. For users who wish to run DBMS software on a nondedicated file server, Novell will push its own Netware SQL, XQL and Btrieve. For those opting for a dedicated database server, Novell will offer up Gupta's SQLbase, a more robust server system. The move is seen as aimed squarely at Microsoft, which is pushing its own SQL Server and LAN Manager operating system. For whom the bell tolls. Sources close to DEC say the firm will officially retire the Vaxstation II/GPX on March 31. The workstation was introduced in January 1986 and was the first workstation in the industry to use MIT's X Window System. A DEC spokesman said the move would not surprise him, as it is shadowed in price/performance by the Vaxstation 3100, 3200 and 3500 models. Privileged partner? Although IBM is late with AIX/370 for its customers, that does not affect the Open Software Foundation, says OSF Chairman David Tory. The OSF is using AIX as the core product for its alternative to an AT&T-standard Unix, and Torey said the original schedule is being met by IBM. The OSF has been receiving AIX Release 2 code and expects to receive Release 3 code in March. Spotting Sparcs. The consortium of chip vendors to promote Sun Microsystems' Scalable Processor Architecture (Sparc) has been incorporated. Sparc International, Inc. will be led by Cypress Semiconductor's Roger Ross, who also pioneered Motorola's RISC efforts before joining Cypress. According to Cypress' chief executive, T. J. Rodgers, Sparc International has been awarded the legal right to use the Sparc name. The next step is to ensure compatibility between all available versions of Sparc and the Unix operating system, Rodgers said. Sparc International is also composed of representatives from Fujitsu, Texas Instruments, LSI Logic and Bipolar Integrated Technology. Will the next Bill Gates surface in the LAN market? Public offerings for high-tech companies have paled since Seattle Willy was made a billionaire by Wall Street, but Network General Corp., owner of the Sniffer diagnostic package, saw its planned $35 million public offering bid up to $50 million by investors. With that and HP's buy into 3Com, it must be time for The Wall Street Journal to start writing about LANs. But if you want to see the story straight, give those tips to News Editor Pete Bartolik by calling our hot line at 800-343-6474 or 508-879-0700. <<<>>> Title : 3Com, HP ally using TCP/I Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 3comhp Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: SAN FRANCISCO _ Barely a week after announcing plans to integrate their product lines, partners 3Com Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. showcased Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) as their approach to OS/2 and Unix server interoperability. Two weeks ago, the firms announced six areas of product development focused heavily on standards such as TCP/IP, CCITT's X.400 and the Open Systems Interconnect model. The resulting products were scheduled to begin shipping by the second quarter. [CW, Feb. 27]. HP and 3Com said they will jointly port and test a TCP/IP protocol suite for DOS and OS/2, which will then be integrated into their respective local-area network management products. A demonstratiion at Uniforum 1989 last week used TCP/IP to link 3Com's OS/2 LAN Manager server and HP's LAN Manager for Unic (LM/X) server and featured both MS-DOS and OS/2 workstations communicating with LM/X. Server choice This capability _ which essentially gives users a choice of using OS/2 boxes or minicomputers as servers _ is slated for fourth-quarter availability. 3Com will initially offer TCP/IP as a 3+Open option. TCP/IP is used to provide interoperability between multivendor systems and is popular in the Unix and Ethernet camps. ``This demonstration illustrates one of the first tangible benefits that our customers can expect from the strategic alliance,'' said Eric Benhamou, general manager of 3Com's software products division. 3Com has siad its first priority will be to link LM/X and 3+Open, which is based on OS/2 LAN Manager. The most commonly used TCP/IP applications _ File Transfer Protocol and Telnet _ will be included in a consistent platform to help standardize the development of applications designed to run over DOS, OS/2 and Unix systems. By Patricia Keefe, CW staff <<<>>> Title : General Business Technolo Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwgenera Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: General Business Technology, Inc. (GBT) has announced an 850 char./sec. matrix printer. Designated the 5229RS, the unit reportedly emulates the IBM 5225, and is IBM Application System/400-, System/34-, 36- and 38- compatible. The printer is attached via twin-axial cable and can used locally or remotely. The GBT 5229RS costs $3,295. GBT 1891 McGaw Ave. Irvine, Calif. 92714 714-261-1891 <<<>>> Title : Adacom Corp. has announce Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netadaco Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Adacom Corp. has announced a coaxial eliminator tha reportedly allows IBM devices to be connected over twisted-pair cable to a distance of 2,00 ft. The CM-1 Baluns are used in pairs to permit the Type A controller port to transmit data over twisted-pair cable to a remote IBM peripheral. The product does not require an external power source and is priced at $30. Adacom 8871 Bond Overland Park, Kan. 66214 913-888-4999 <<<>>> Title : NAS, users find relief in Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: buynas Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: SANTA CLARA, Calif. _ It wasn't real. It wasn't Memorex. Memorex Telex N.V. last week lost its bid to buy half of National Advanced Systems from National Semiconductor Corp. after missing two deadlines. Instead, NAS was sold in its entirety to a joint venture between Hitachi Ltd. and Electronic Data Systems Corp. Having sunk millions of dollars into equipment, NAS customers watched the buyout scenario closely; most polled by Computerworld last week said they expect to be unaffected by the change in ownership and are grateful that NAS has new backing (see story page 4). NAS has run a distant third in the plug-compatible mainframe market _ behind Amdahl Corp. and IBM _ in the last couple of years. To many, the buyout appears destined to help NAS eke out a bigger slice of the mainframe market. Not only will it ``give the company a bigger shot,'' said Bonnie Digrius, an analyst at Infocorp in Santa Clara, Calif., but ``there is a trend toward systems integrators to plan and architect hardware and software for an entire corporation. EDS' ownership would not only feed that trend but would act as an alternative channel of distribution.'' Hitachi first made an offer to buy NAS in December from owner National Semiconductor Corp. but lost out to Memorex Telex. ``We were not up to the price,'' said Yasushi Sayama, a spokesman for Hitachi America Ltd. in Tarrytown, N.Y. Enough, but too late But by Feb. 24, Hitachi had teamed up with EDS and offered $398 million in cash for NAS in its entirety. That same day, Memorex notified National Semiconductor that it had finally come up with the financing for its original offer, but that was apparently too late. ``It was a very competitive offer and we decided not to pursue it,'' said Memorex spokeswoman Julie Gentz, referring to the Hitachi-EDS bid. ``We could have bid at the time, but the price was too high for us.'' Hitachi and EDS will retain 80% and 20% of NAS' ownership, respectively. The percentages will stay constant, but the size of the pie will diminish because promptly after the first acquisition, Hitachi and EDS will sell off NAS' European operations to Comperex, according to Hitachi. Currently, Comperex sells Hitachi equipment in the same markets as NAS. EDS subcontracts out hardware to all the PCMs, said Cathie Hargett, an EDS spokeswoman. ``While IBM claims we are their biggest customer, we have never said that. We are vendor-independent, and that won't change.'' All in the family Despite EDS' claims, Hitachi expects the relationship to open the door wider for Hitachi sales to EDS, according to company spokesman Kazuya Hanazuka. Digrius and other analysts said they assume EDS will have a greater tendency to subcontract with NAS than with other vendors. ``They can deny it all they want, but you shop from your relatives first,'' said Dale Kutnick, an analyst at The Meta Group in Westport, Conn. Amdahl downplayed the potential loss of its share of EDS' business, although Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc. analyst Peter Labe said that it represented 3% to 4% of the company's total revenue of $1.8 billion, or more than $50 million. ``We assume our business with [EDS] will diminish,'' stated John Lewis, Amdahl's chief executive officer. EDS participation in the buyout appears to be significant on a level other than that of a systems integrator. Its minority ownership eases some of the concern about Japanese companies making inroads into the U.S. marketplace. Since the talks during Hirohito's funeral, the U.S. political climate appears to be thawing as far as receptiveness to Japanese investment is concerned. But at least one analyst thinks users' fears will be stirred in the wake of the buyout. ``Americans don't like to buy from overseas suppliers,'' Labe said. If users are not already anxious about foreign ownership, ``I think IBM will help them reach that conclusion.'' Another concern is the potential for price hikes. Selling a Hitachi machine in the U.S. is not as lucrative as selling one in West Germany because of the different relative values of the currency. Because of the dollar's declining value compared with the yen, Hitachi would have to sell the machine for a higher price in the U.S. to make the same profit. Hitachi, however, said it will basically ignore the currency or potential profit difference and not raise prices in the U.S. Japanese ownership aside, NAS analysts have nothing but praise for the deal and say the customer is likely to be better off with the backing of the two companies, which are considered to be in a more enviable economic position than Memorex. Wealthy relatives ``It's like having two rich uncles,'' said Bob Djurdjevic, president of Annex Research, a Phoenix, Ariz., mainframe consultant. He said that, unlike the Memorex deal, the new owners will not need to take on NAS' debt from National Semiconductor. In fact, since last Monday, while NAS' employees remain under the aegis of National Semiconductor, the company has been managed for the benefit or loss of the new owners. Indeed, NAS is being adopted by a wealthy family. Hitachi's revenue approaches IBM's at about $50 billion per year, according to the company. Its computer operations alone grossed approximately $7.4 billion. EDS had revenue of $4.8 billion last year. By contrast, NAS estimates sales will be $800 million in this fiscal year. The future of current NAS management is still nebulous in the buyout plan. The Hitachi spokesman would not comment on any change but did say, ``Obviously, someone from Hitachi will be sent in, and EDS will send a person.'' EDS would not verify any management specifics. By J.A. Savage, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Earth database compiled u Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 1bio Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: In the Dark Ages, they would have been burned as heretics for taking life into their own hands this way. But the 21st century is not that far off, and Space Biospheres Ventures in Oracle, Ariz., is taking on a godlike role as it constructs a giant terrarium in the desert. It is leveraging a massive database to catalog much of the world's flora and fauna and installing computers for modeling and tracking plant, animal and human interaction. Noah's ark, it ain't. Biosphere II, the project's name, is an attempt to re-create the Earth's biosphere on two acres. Since its researchers cannot play Noah and put two of everything in such a small space, they are choosing just the right variety of hydroponically cultured plants, insects _ even termites and mosquitoes _ fish, birds and other animal classes from all over the world. More than 200 scientists are contributing to the Unix-based database. When completed late next year, eight Biospherians (the humans) will be added to the mix, and the whole facility will be sealed up for two years. No way out will be provided for anyone, barring total collapse of the systems. Medical and dental care will be provided by the Biospherians. Once the doors are shut, microprocessor-based sensors will feed data on air and soil temperature, humidity and movement over a 10M bit/sec. IEEE 802.3 fiber-optic local-area network to the database. The database will be spread over 20 Hewlett-Packard Co. 9000 file servers and will be accessed by those inside the experiment as well as by researchers on the outside. Large animals and plants will be tagged with bar codes, according to a source close to the installation. ``We decided not to bar-code the insects,'' the source added. While not yet completely designed or implemented, the database will allow users to find current status and historic information on each of the 3,800 species expected to reside in the experiment. Software for the project is a mix of in-house-developed programs and customized off-the-shelf products such as an industrial process and control platform tweaked to monitor the lake and ocean water as well as humidity in the air. Scientists from around the country and as far away as London have been building the database of flora and fauna through dial-up electronic messaging. An HP 3000 minicomputer running a proprietary operating system is being used for administrative management. Those who are employed by the venture and live within its confines appear confident that their massive databases will help them determine the necessary species and their proper quantities to get the experiment through two years. If they are correct, or close enough, it could proffer not only environmental information for survival of the Earth but also potential for survival beyond the Earth. ``In many cases, the plants are rare, or rare in the U.S., so you need to know the diseases they're susceptible to and how to take care of them,'' said Kathleen Dyhr, the project's director of information systems. With the database being built, all one needs to do is execute a search for the information. Once inside the terrarium, each Biospherian will have his or her own personal computer, networked not only to the flora and fauna database but to most information services imaginable. Dyhr, one of 14 candidates to be a Biospherian, anticipated spending Sunday mornings with the electronically provided New York Times and the single cup of coffee allotted per person per week _ grown from the enclosure's 10 coffee trees. The long substructure of the terrarium is nearly in place in a vast desert north of Tucson, Ariz. At the low end of the structure will be a wet-climate desert moving to a savannah and marsh and then to a freshwater lake. Since the superstructure's greenhouse ceiling rises with each biome, each contains a more humid environment. Following the lake environment is a saltwater ocean complete with wave action. The uppermost biome is a rain forest intended to recycle the atmospheric water back into a stream feeding the ocean and lake. Structural design is being performed in MS-DOS on 10 of the venture's 50 PCs, said Norberto Alvarez-Romo, director of cybernetic systems. ``We looked at Unix for the design work, but the applications are so many years behind DOS,'' he said. Additionally, there are 20 HP 9000 Unix-based file servers and one HP 3000 with a proprietary operating system. The minicomputer runs accounting, cost control and data acquisition through remote sensors. Alvarez-Romo, who is also a Biospherian candidate, describes his 50-CPU network as a supercomputer that does not reside in one place but ``is all around you.'' While budgetary restraints are not Alvarez-Romo's major concern, he said he is happy he does not have an unlimited budget. If he did, he said he would probably spend it on methods to gather more data, and its volume would become unmanageable. As it is, filtering data down to a manageable level and networking the results to determine relevant interrelationships takes up the majority of system time. Trying to pinpoint where to stop or start gathering data is Alvarez-Romo's special skill and a potential pitfall, he said. ``You have to find areas where a small intervention makes a big difference,'' he said. If it makes too much or too little difference, the project may fail. The government, particularly the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is watching carefully. NASA has several interests in the project, according to Bill Wolverton, senior research scientist at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. First and foremost is the experiment's applicability to space stations. Second, the administration is interested in technology transfer. ``We could use the applications for addressing indoor air pollution, the greenhouse effect and recycling waste through plants,'' Wolverton said. While Wolverton personally is thrilled with Biosphere II, ``there are mixed emotions in NASA about the project,'' he said. ``There are always skeptics.'' The $30 million project is underwritten with venture capital. Dyhr reported there are two patents pending on water- and air-purification devices developed for the experiment. The project will not be open to the public until it is complete. There is, however, a public conference center on the site. By J.A. Savage, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Users face new NAS backer Author : J.A. Savage Source : CW Comm FileName: userbar Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Analysts may say that NAS users are confused by the vacillating reports of new ownership for the firm, but users contacted by Computerworld claimed they were not confused at all. Rather, they were relieved, and none said they were terribly concerned about foreign ownership. ``It's somewhere between a nonevent and a good event,'' said George Hess, vice-president of systems and planning at Ingersoll Milling Machine Co. in Rockford, Ill. He added that throughout the negotiations, he was kept informed ``without the slightest problem.'' Others were slightly more perturbed. ``You're obviously concerned when you see these things in the papers, but if anything, NAS went overboard to make sure we were informed,'' said Richard Lester, vice-president of information services at Associated Grocers, Inc. in Seattle. The only concern Lester had about Hitachi Ltd. ownership is that it stay 100% IBM-compatible, because it offers noncompatible systems in Japan. Peter Hill, senior vice-president of base technology operations at Bank America Corp. in San Francisco, was also concerned at first. The Hitachi deal was a relief for Hill, and he is unconcerned about Japanese ownership. ``It's a global economy. We offer banking services in Japan.'' The ``buy American'' philosophy was more important to Chevron Corp.'s Dave Nielson, manager of technical evaluation, but not important enough to give up on NAS. ``We'd prefer to buy American where we can until the economics make a little sense. If IBM were dealing with the price and reliability levels that NAS is, I'd rather buy from the American company.'' J. A. SAVAGE <<<>>> Title : IBM, AT&T execs spar over Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: uniforum Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: SAN FRANCISCO _ Nearly a year after IBM and eight other firms formed the Open Software Foundation (OSF) to oppose AT&T's development of Unix, the two giants of the information industry are still slugging away at each other. IBM, championed by Terry R. Lautenbach, senior vice-president and general manager of IBM United States, and AT&T, represented by Robert M. Kavner, president of AT&T's Data Systems group, jousted over the development of Unix in keynote speeches made on two successive days at Uniforum 1989, the International Conference of Unix Users, here last week. Lautenbach contended that OSF's efforts, which are based on AIX, IBM's Unix version, were an ``open, independent, vendor-neutral process.'' Kavner responded the next day by proclaiming, ``After yesterday's presentation, I opened up the closet and took out my boxing gloves.'' Lautenbach noted that when an OSF decision is reached, everyone _ sponsors, members and nonmembers _ gets the information at the same time. ``No favorites are played here,'' he said. ``In our view, AT&T asserted that System V, Release 4 was the only way to achieve compatibility for software vendors and customers. Well, it wasn't and it isn't,'' he said. AT&T's recently formed unit, Unix Software Operation, represents ``a promise that no one company will own [the rights to] Unix,'' Kavner said. He added that the X/Open Consortium Ltd. and other standards bodies such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. and the American National Standards Institute should set Unix standards specifications. He also noted that OSF's members ``lack one goal _ that of protecting end users' investments.'' Kavner claimed that more astute users have known all along that the Unix standards conflict was ``just an industry scrap, a squabble that will pass.'' Meanwhile, AT&T has opted to give early source code of Unix System V, Release 4 to the Unix International, Inc. group it spearheads. AT&T outlined plans last week for an early access program for other Unix International members. Only those firms will receive the early source code for AT&T's Unix System V, Release 4 update, locking out more than 90 rivals from OSF. Unix users interviewed at the show seemed uninvolved in the struggle between the OSF/Unix International factions. One San Francisco-area user said, ``As long as a product has X Windows and TCP/IP, we just don't care.'' Many users said they already have multiple versions of Unix in-house. In the words of one user, ``There have always been two flavors of Unix: AT&T's and Berkeley's. I don't see how this will be any different.'' By Patrick Waurzyniak, CW staff <<<>>> Title : AIX/370 finds support, bu Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: newibm Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: SAN FRANCISCO _ IBM's delayed AIX/370 mainframe Unix is alive and well and living in California. One copy resides on an IBM Enterprise System/3090 mainframe in IBM's Almaden Research Center in the San Jose area, and another is running on an ES/3090 with a Vector Facility in IBM's Palo Alto, Calif., Scientific Center. At Intel Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif., engineers used three IBM 3090s running AIX/370 to design the recently announced Intel I860 reduced instruction set computing chip (see story page 1), IBM executives disclosed at Uniforum 1989 here last week. Across the country, eight IBM customers are using AIX/370 in an early-support program, IBM Vice-President and General Manager Terry Lautenbach said in his Uniforum keynote address. Six to 10 more customers will be added this spring, Lautenbach said. ``We will announce general availability in July, and we will continue to expand our installation base throughout the year,'' Lautenbach said. ``I grant you it is taking us longer than expected to implement AIX on the 370 architecture.'' IBM Vice-President Nicholas Donofrio, president of IBM's Advanced Workstation Division, said last week that AIX/370 will, at first, run under three variations of the VM operating system _ VM/SP, VM/SP High Performance Option and VM/XA. Donofrio said that AIX/370 will eventually be made to run native on the IBM mainframe architecture. ``It's not there yet,'' he said, ``but of course we can [do that], and of course we will.'' While IBM tries to get there, MIS executives at Uniforum indicated that is not the direction in which they are moving. ``I don't think mainframe Unix is important at all, not in our environment,'' said Mark A. Boster, assistant administrator of automated information services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers Home Loan Administration. William Teather, head of information management at British Airways, said he foresees a narrow market for mainframe Unix. ``Mainframe Unix provides a reasonable development environment for a large number of people,'' Teather said. ``But it seems that those days are rapidly passing. Most of the machines you'd want to develop applications on today would surround the mainframe.'' For now, IBM executives said, AIX/370 will serve as a collection point for data coming to the host from Unix workstations scattered throughout a corporate enterprise. By Jean S. Bozman, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Sytek finds home Sytek, I Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: short306 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Sytek finds home Sytek, Inc., known primarily as a supplier of broadband technology, last week said it will be acquired by Hughes Aircraft Co., a unit of GM Hughes Electronics. The deal combines Sytek's terminal and local-area network capabilities with Hughes' wide-area networking technology. Sytek's parent company, General Instruments, had been dangling its 57% share of Sytek before potential buyers for more than a year. Sytek will be known after the merger as Hughes LAN Systems, a unit of Hughes Aircraft. Sytek President and CEO George Klaus will continue in those roles. Hughes LAN Systems will work with Hughes Aircraft and Hughes Network Systems. More details will be provided at a news conference scheduled for tomorrow. Cheap help wanted Low pay, outdated job descriptions, limited training and the federal government's bad image are factors that hinder federal MIS managers' efforts to recruit and retain MIS personnel, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report. For example, the salary for an entry-level programmer in the federal government, $15,118, is as much as 33% lower than the salary for the same job in the commercial sector, the report said. IBM 4381 withdrawal withdrawn The IBM 4381 Models 23 and 24, killed last month with the introduction of new Enterprise Systems Architecture-capable 4381s, have been reborn. IBM announced continued availability last week of the two 4381s, which were scheduled to be pulled off the market in May. A company spokesman said the withdrawal was canceled because of outstanding bids involving the systems. DCA redirects resources Digital Communications Associates, Inc. (DCA) last week laid off almost 3% of its 1,500 work force and moved those positions into sales, customer service and development activities. DCA said the moves should strengthen its competitive position. The firm added that it is adopting cost-saving measures. Analysts have said they expect DCA, the subject of many buyout rumors, to be part of a major transaction this year. MAI in new thrustAfter months of warring in the boardrooms of two companies and the courtrooms of two states, potential hostile acquisitor MAI Basic Four, Inc. last week armed for a new fight for Prime Computer, Inc. MAI, headed by New York financier Bennett S. LeBow and financially backed by Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc., announced it will wage a proxy contest to replace Prime's board of directors with its own slate at Prime's annual meeting, scheduled for May 12. Look and feel wins backing With Lotus Development Corp. and Ashton-Tate Corp. offering legal advice, a small software company last week won a look-and-feel lawsuit that may add credence to larger cases still pending. Manufacturers Technologies, Inc. (MTI) in West Springfield, Mass., sued two competitors and one remarketer for infringing the copyright on its computer-aided cost estimating system. According to the firm, the case in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Conn., was the first to be won solely on the basis of look and feel. The court withheld a ruling on damages but issued an injunction against the defendants. Grid 386 is space bound Taking product testing to the extreme, NASA will test Grid Systems Corp.'s Model 1530 portable computer on space shuttle missions, including the Discovery flight scheduled for this week. Astronauts will take the Grid PC high above Earth to test the Intel Corp. 80386-based system with tasks such as floppy-to-floppy and floppy-to-disk file transfers. They will also test a mouse and trackball without gravity. <<<>>> Title : DEC adds low-end RISC sys Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hardwa Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: SAN FRANCISCO _ Digital Equipment Corp. announced a general-purpose computer last week that is based on the same Mips Computer Systems, Inc. RISC chip that powers the Decstation 3100. The Decsystem 3100, announced here at Uniforum 1989, was designed to complement the company's Mips Computer Systems-based reduced instruction set computing Decstation 3100 and other RISC-based products that were announced Jan. 10 (see story page 41). ``This RISC machine is intended for a wider range of users,'' explained Domenic LaCava, vice-president of DEC's low-end systems group. Although based on a single-board CPU, the Decsystem contains a small computer systems interface bus that connects with one or more on-board 332M-byte disk drives. The system is packaged as a stack of low-profile, modular boxes that can sit underneath an end user's desk or in a corner of a department's offices. Three models of the Decsystem 3100, which runs at 14 million instructions per second (MIPS), are available for order now, with volume shipments planned for the second quarter. The eight-user, 8M-byte model is priced at $22,000; the 16-user, 16M-byte model is priced at $37,700; and the high-end 32-user, 24M-byte system is priced at $55,600. Decsystem users may access remote users through Decserver products that are connected to DEC's Ethernet local-area networks, spokesmen said. In the spotlight Other hardware highlights of the Uniforum show included the following: Data General Corp., as expected, unveiled a 17-MIPS workstation based on Motorola, Inc.'s 88000 RISC chip. Called the Aviion system, DG said the unit is the first of an entire family of products based on the 88000 and on DG's DG/UX 4.1 Unix operating system. DG/UX is compatible with AT&T Unix System V, Release 3, the University of California at Berkeley Unix 4.2 and the Posix government Unix standard. The workstation is priced at $7,450, and the system/server version is priced at $52,000. Motorola introduced a line of systems based on its version of RISC, the 88000 chip. The Delta Series 8000 includes two models based on Motorola's 20-MHz processor. The Model 8864 is offered in a single-, dual- or four-processor configuration that is said to perform at 17 to 60 MIPS and is priced from $52,940 for a single-processor unit to $80,190 for a four-processor configuration. A second system, the Model 8608, offers 8M to 32M bytes of main memory and 12 expansion slots. Motorola rated it at 17 MIPS and priced it at $27,835 for an entry-level configuration. Zenith Data Systems formally introduced a multiuser Unix computer that serves as a departmental node for as many as 90 end users. Originally shown to the press last year [CW, Aug. 22, 1988], the Z-1000 contains 13 IBM Personal Computer AT-compatible boards in its cabinet. The Intel Corp. 80386-based boards support applications running on 60 to 90 IBM-compatible personal computers. The Z-1000 comes with 64M bytes of main memory and with 64K bytes of cache memory on each of six processor cards. Multiple copies of MS-DOS are hosted by the Z-1000's VPIX Unix operating system, product manager Ron Baldwin said. Each unit has four or more removable disk drives for security and backup. Five models are priced from $20,000 to $60,000. The Z-1000 units are scheduled to begin shipping in volume in May. By Jean S. Bozman and Julie Pitta, CW staff <<<>>> Title : News shorts Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: short36 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Sytek finds home Sytek, Inc., known primarily as a supplier of broadband technology, last week said it will be acquired by Hughes Aircraft Co., a unit of GM Hughes Electronics. The deal combines Sytek's terminal and local-area network capabilities with Hughes' wide-area networking technology. Sytek's parent company, General Instruments, had been dangling its 57% share of Sytek before potential buyers for more than a year. Sytek will be known after the merger as Hughes LAN Systems, a unit of Hughes Aircraft. Sytek President and CEO George Klaus will continue in those roles. Hughes LAN Systems will work with Hughes Aircraft and Hughes Network Systems. More details will be provided at a news conference scheduled for tomorrow. Cheap help wanted Low pay, outdated job descriptions, limited training and the federal government's bad image are factors that hinder federal MIS managers' efforts to recruit and retain MIS personnel, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report. For example, the salary for an entry-level programmer in the federal government, $15,118, is as much as 33% lower than the salary for the same job in the commercial sector, the report said. IBM 4381 withdrawal withdrawn The IBM 4381 Models 23 and 24, killed last month with the introduction of new Enterprise Systems Architecture-capable 4381s, have been reborn. IBM announced continued availability last week of the two 4381s, which were scheduled to be pulled off the market in May. A company spokesman said the withdrawal was canceled because of outstanding bids involving the systems. DCA redirects resources Digital Communications Associates, Inc. (DCA) last week laid off almost 3% of its 1,500 work force and moved those positions into sales, customer service and development activities. DCA said the moves should strengthen its competitive position. The firm added that it is adopting cost-saving measures. Analysts have said they expect DCA, the subject of many buyout rumors, to be part of a major transaction this year. MAI in new thrustAfter months of warring in the boardrooms of two companies and the courtrooms of two states, potential hostile acquisitor MAI Basic Four, Inc. last week armed for a new fight for Prime Computer, Inc. MAI, headed by New York financier Bennett S. LeBow and financially backed by Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc., announced it will wage a proxy contest to replace Prime's board of directors with its own slate at Prime's annual meeting, scheduled for May 12. Look and feel wins backing With Lotus Development Corp. and Ashton-Tate Corp. offering legal advice, a small software company last week won a look-and-feel lawsuit that may add credence to larger cases still pending. Manufacturers Technologies, Inc. (MTI) in West Springfield, Mass., sued two competitors and one remarketer for infringing the copyright on its computer-aided cost estimating system. According to the firm, the case in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Conn., was the first to be won solely on the basis of look and feel. The court withheld a ruling on damages but issued an injunction against the defendants. Grid 386 is space bound Taking product testing to the extreme, NASA will test Grid Systems Corp.'s Model 1530 portable computer on space shuttle missions, including the Discovery flight scheduled for this week. Astronauts will take the Grid PC high above Earth to test the Intel Corp. 80386-based system with tasks such as floppy-to-floppy and floppy-to-disk file transfers. They will also test a mouse and trackball without gravity. <<<>>> Title : Key concerns Author : Mitch Betts Source : CW Comm FileName: cap Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Rep. Edward J. Markey said the House panel has several concerns about price caps. Addressing the FCC's Dennis R. Patrick, Markey said he wants answers to the following: Why lock in existing rates that the FCC says are ``too high in an economic sense'' because of years of rate padding and then see them increase each of the next four years? Why not wait for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government's expert agency on productivity, to calculate a telecommunications productivity measure instead of relying on possibly outdated studies? Why won't the FCC commit to finishing all outstanding tariff investigations before beginning a new regulatory regime? Why do most of the people purported to benefit from this plan oppose it? MITCH BETTS <<<>>> Title : Decnet out to capture X.2 Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: dec25 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: MAYNARD, Mass. _ The latest round of the battle between IBM and Digital Equipment Corp. for control of the corporate network is being fought on the X.25 front, with DEC expected this week to finally provide Decnet support for X.25 devices, company spokesmen confirmed. DEC's X25portal 2000, which is to be ``a key component to our enterprise networking strategy,'' according to Lee Sudan, DEC's director of networking, is said to allow any host with a CCITT X.25 interface to communicate over either a Decnet or X.25 network. The software package converts Decserver 2000s _ Microvax II-based network servers that DEC announced last August _ into an enterprisewide backbone that can support both DEC and non-DEC systems, Sudan said. The product is DEC's return volley at IBM's X.25 Interconnect (XI), which provides X.25 support over IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA), said Steven Wendler, a program director at Gartner Group, Inc. in Stamford, Conn. XI, which IBM formally introduced more than a year ago, ``caught DEC with its pants down,'' Wendler said. XI was only the first in a series of IBM announcements to ``position SNA as a total enterprise backbone for data, with everyone else's network a legbone hanging off it,'' Wendler said. Around the same time, IBM introduced the 3745, its first communications processor with enough power to handle XI networks, given that the software ``is a resource hog,'' Wendler said. Last September, IBM announced full support of Open Systems Interconnect traffic over SNA backbones, and, as a crowning blow, provided Decnet support over SNA. DEC's X25portal 2000 announcement is one of a series of releases with which the vendor hopes to position Decnet as a company's central network rather than as an SNA appendage. The package will be able to work in concert with X.25 Router 2000, another Decserver package that allows Decnet devices to communicate with other systems over an X.25 packet-switched network, Sudan said. DEC expects to upgrade the servers shortly so that they can support full 1.5M bit/ sec. T1 speeds, he added. DEC is also expected to announce a more powerful, VAXBI-based version of its DSV 11 controller next week. The current controller links Microvaxes to Decnet, SNA and X.25 environments. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Emery systems fit merger Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: emery2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: MENLO PARK, Calif. _ If Consolidated Freightways, Inc.'s $230 million tender offer for Emery Air Freight Corp. is successful, Consolidated will gain not only Emery's air-freight business but also its sophisticated package-tracking system. According to Consolidated spokesman Jim Allen, his company has been competing daily with Emery's Emcon system, used for package tracking and billing. Robert R. Bohannon, vice-president of information systems at Emery in Wilton, Conn., said it is too soon to tell what changes might be made to Emery's systems and staff if the acquisition takes place. Through the acquisition, Consolidated would also gain Purolator Courier Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Emery that specializes in overnight delivery of small packages and letters. In 1987, Emery paid approximately $313 million, or $40 per share, for Purolator. Allen said the reason for Consolidated's $230 million offer for the company was that Emery had lost money for the last two years, reportedly in the range of $100 million. Not perfect With or without the Emcon system, the pairing of Emery and Consolidated _ which had $2.7 billion in sales and $113.2 million in earnings last year _ is not necessarily going to be a popular move with Wall Street, according to analyst Paul R. Schlesinger at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc. ``I don't think this merger is made in heaven,'' he said. Schlesinger said that while Emcon was state-of-the-art technology when it was first implemented, it had been allowed to stagnate for 15 years. ``Then the people at Emery discovered they had a lot of remedial work to do, set about doing that, and I believe they have made a lot of strides,'' he said. Allen said the Emery acquisition is part of its planned expansion of CF Air Freight, Consolidated's air freight company. ``We had a five-year expansion plan for CF Air Freight that was going to cost us about $250 million. What this does, for $230 million, is essentially complete our expansion plan immediately,'' Allen said. Consolidated's other primary businesses include shipping heavy freight by truck, rail and ocean vessels. Over the last 10 years, Consolidated has pumped $225 million into the development of its systems technology, Allen said, claiming that Consolidated boasts the second largest computer system in the state of Oregon, where the MIS operation is based. Allen said if the acquisition is successful, the name of the new company would be Emery Worldwide, a CF Company. He estimated the deal would not be completed for eight to 10 weeks. Emery has offices in approximately 230 U.S. cities and 98 cities worldwide in 38 countries outside of the U.S. Consolidated has 18 international offices in 12 countries and another 1,044 freight facilities in North America. By Alan J. Ryan, CW staff <<<>>> Title : How it gets there overnig Author : Alan J. Ryan Source : CW Comm FileName: emeryb Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: When Emery Air Freight acquired Purolator Courier in 1987, the overnight letter carrier was in the process of increasing its system and ``was somewhat behind the competition in some function ality and features on their system,'' said Robert R. Bohannon, Emery's vice-president of information systems. But as of this month, Purolator's lackluster systems have been replaced, and the business has moved onto Emery's Emcon sys- tem. With the addition of Purolator, Emcon's daily shipment tracking will grow from 70,000 packages to approximately 200,000, Bohannon said. The Emcon system consists of 3,000 worldwide terminals linked to IBM mainframes; it allows for the entry of all airway bill information for every shipment that Emery handles on a daily basis, Bohannon said. Using bar codes and a handheld bar code reader wand, each package is tracked from the point of pickup to the local Emery office, then to the Emery office nearest the destination point. It is finally tracked to the destination point itself, where couriers can type in the name of the person who received the package. The wand is polled by Emery's IBM 3090 mainframe computers when it is placed in a cradle by the courier. Emcom also offers a messaging capability that allows administrative messages to be sent from any Emery office to any other Emery office worldwide, a charge rate schedule for packages and a customer service function that allows specific customer information to be called from a master file, including a particular company's pickup dock location and hours of operation. ALAN J. RYAN <<<>>> Title : FCC rules AT&T must post Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: fcc2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: WASHINGTON, D.C. _ AT&T must disclose its prices for the Federal Telecommunications System 2000 (FTS-2000) in a public tariff after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week rejected the company's unprecedented request to keep the rates secret. AT&T's assertion that disclosure of the rates could cause competitive harm when the FTS-2000 contract is rebid in four years was not sufficient to justify the secrecy request, the FCC said, because published rates are the essence of a tariff. AT&T, which won a contract for 60% of the federal government's intercity network last year, will compete in four years with the other contractor, U.S. Sprint Communications Co., for a greater share of the network. Exposed Under the Communications Act of 1934 and FCC rules, AT&T must file tariffs that expose its rates. AT&T filed FTS-2000 rates with the FCC under a new Tariff 16, designed for government contracts, but sought a waiver from the disclosure rules to keep U.S. Sprint from learning its prices [CW, Feb. 13]. The FCC agreed with MCI Communications Corp.'s complaint that secret rates would set a bad precedent. ``AT&T could quite plausibly claim that disclosure of any AT&T tariff rate for any service could cause AT&T competitive harm,'' said the ruling by Gerald Brock, chief of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau. Brock suggested that AT&T file its FTS-2000 tariff again, this time with prices on the public record. Although the FCC rejected the secrecy request, it did approve AT&T's introduction of Tariff 16 for ``competitively bid governmental services.'' Last week, the FCC upheld AT&T's first Tariff 16 offering, a long-distance network for military bases in Hawaii. By Mitch Betts, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Bachman readies CASE tool Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: bach Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. _ Bachman Information Systems, Inc. rounded out its computer-aided software engineering (CASE) offerings recently with the announcement of Version 2.1 of its Bachman/Re-engineering product set. The software, scheduled for March availability, features a new IBM DB2 design tool called Bachman/DBA for DB2 _ an improved version of Bachman/ Data Analyst _ and extensions to Data Analyst that capture IBM IMS and flat file structures for reengineering, according to the company. The products give the Bachman product set new data modeling and design functionality for database designers and administrators. Previously, a database professional using Bachman's Version 1.0 products was able to build a DB2 data model from scratch or by reengineering Cullinet Software, Inc. IDMS/R database descriptions. With the Version 2.1 software, DB2 data models can also be built from captured IMS or Cobol file descriptions by reengineering existing DB2 descriptions or by importing from a code generator. The Bachman products make use of expert system technology to advise database professionals on DB2 database design and administration _ an area of expertise that is scarce, according to Richard Manasseri, product manager for the Bachman DB2 products. The new version also introduced graphical representation of DB2 database design in the form of Bachman DB2 Diagrams, making design concepts easier to comprehend. Database administrators can work with diagrams instead of the SQL language for the first time, in much the same way an engineer works with computer-aided designs, Manasseri said. Cambridge-based Bachman's reengineering products translate existing database designs into database-independent designs, which can then be forward-engineered into DB2 designs. All the Bachman products run on Intel Corp. 80386-based personal computers or AT&T workstations running MS-DOS. Prices for the new software range from $5,000 to $10,000 for each of the five modules. By Amy Cortese, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Epoch taking the high roa Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: epoch2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: MARLBORO, Mass. _ Three years ago, Kenneth Holberger, Charles Holland and Gregory Kenley were would-be entrepreneurs with a hot product idea and a hatred for mediocrity. The former, according to analysts and users, got Epoch Systems, Inc. off the ground. But it is the latter, according to Holberger, that is really making the company fly. ``Failure isn't a problem for a growing company. Failure ends,'' he says. What really cripples companies, according to Holberger, is ``mediocrity and ambivalence _ those are my worst fears.'' In shepherding two friends through a business plan in 1986 and deciding to join the company they created as its president, Holberger made certain to avoid his fears at every turn. Epoch makes the Epoch-1 Infinite Storage server, a hierarchical data storage system that weds high-speed magnetic disk drives to a jukebox-full of optical disk technology to store, manage and deliver as much as 150G bytes. Aimed at networked workstation users, it supports any hardware that uses Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Network File System protocol _ a group whose roster includes the wares of Sun itself, Digital Equipment Corp., Apollo Computer, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM. Because the Epoch-1 software runs interference between active files stored on the magnetic media and lower priority, but still needed, data housed on the optical disks, the user benefits from two crucial illusions: All data appears to be on-line and storage capacity appears to be unlimited. While imitators are imminent, the Epoch-1, which debuted last fall, appears to be the first of its kind, analysts said. A marketing bull's-eye That the Epoch-1 is hitting a marketing bull's-eye comes as no surprise to the company's founders. Holberger, Engineering Vice-President Holland and Director of Software Development Kenley _ three Data General Corp. veterans who got fed up with the slowed-down large-corporation approach to technology and lit out for entrepreneurial territory _ started with a clear vision of the kind of company they wanted to run. They did not, however, have any such certainty as to what the well-run company would offer the public. The Epoch crew engaged in a nuts-and-bolts, homegrown exercise in market research, Holberger said. Step No. 1 was finding a big and growing market. Holberger, Holland and Kenley targeted workstations. Step No. 2 was asking the users in that market what they needed the most. One answer popped up repeatedly: storage. ``It's a problem I've always been aware of,'' says Bob Milstein, a software development manager at Cambridge, Mass.-based Thinking Machines Corp., where some 120 workstation users battle daily for data-stashing space. ``No matter how quickly disk technology advances, your files are invariably full 95% of the time.'' Buying another disk each time the problem rears its head, he says, becomes an expensive, unwieldy and sometimes unfeasible alternative. Thinking Machines was delighted to become an Epoch-1 beta site, he notes. If the Epoch-1 was just what workstation users craved, Holberger says, so was Epoch Systems a model of the kind of company that venture capital was looking for in 1986. According to Holberger, venture capitalists _ still reeling from the boom-and-bust initial public offering market that left technology financiers holding the bag several years earlier _ had developed a laundry list of requirements. ``What they wanted to see,'' he says, ``was seasoned management; a targeted market demand; absolutely no more `me-too' anything; a product technology that wasn't so hard that you couldn't bring it to market in two years but that wasn't so easy that anyone could knock it off; and a founding team that wasn't asking for megabucks. We had it all.'' Epoch started life with some $9 million in venture funding. The company had it all in several senses of the phrase, says John Dunkle, a market analyst at Workgroup Technologies, Inc. in Boston. ``I came into my first meeting with them thinking, `Oh boy, here we go again.' I threw Ken Holberger one curve after another,'' he says. ``He fielded every one. They thought it out completely before putting a single screw in a single board.'' Quality-conscious As far as Holberger is concerned, that is the only way to go. ``It's hard to increase quality,'' he says. ``For one thing, people don't tend to hire people who are better than they themselves are.'' If you want quality, ``and we didn't want anything but, you'd better get it up front,'' he adds. Quality, Holberger says, goes well beyond paper credentials. In Epoch's earliest months, when software engineers were desperately needed, a bankruptcy at a nearby high-tech company left an available pool of software talent for the taking, he recalls. ``We interviewed all of their software people, and hired none,'' Holberger says. ``We found a lack of communication, a lack of integration. They weren't software engineers _ software artists, perhaps.'' ``We hired late, and we hired slow, but we held out for the best,'' he says. ``That's what let us complete our first product close to schedule.'' That they did so is no small achievement, says Joanne Bronga, a Jamestown, R.I.-based optical disk and imaging market consultant. ``A typical turnaround for an imaging product sale is 12 to 18 months,'' says Bronga, who was part of a start-up effort to launch a product similar to Epoch's that was one of the casualties of the October 1987 stock market crash. ``Just to have installations out there this soon puts Epoch way ahead of the game. They've always had their act together.'' With a string of Epoch-1s now installed and serving a target market that is booming as predicted, Epoch is harnessing all its guiding principals to spearhead what Holberger calls its second life as a start-up. ``For two years, we've been a marketing-oriented company with a focus on engineering,'' he says. ``Now we're a start-up again, this time with the emphasis on sales.'' The company's goal, he says, is to become a checklist item: ``When you buy storage for your workstation network, we want you to automatically think Epoch.'' By Nell Margolis, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Diagnostick equipment Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netdatac Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Diagnostick equipment A monitor and test set designed for use by telephone craftsmen and end-user network technicians has been introduced by Datacom Technologies, Inc. The Exbert T1 monitor is said to monitor live traffic and perform intrusive T1 facility and equipment tests for D4 and Extended Super Frame formats. The test set costs $2,195. The company also announced the Model 336 universal parallel breakout box, a hand-held tester for monitoring data transfer between a computer and parallel printer. The unit provides direct access to all signal lines, and is priced at $269. Datacom, 11001 31st Place W., Everett, Wash. 98204. 206-355-0590. <<<>>> Title : E-mail a cornerstone to b Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hew Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Simple, stand-alone electronic mail may be in danger of becoming a commodity, but that same capability, when integrated with other office automation functions, is expected to help drive local-area network-based office system sales through the roof. Robust market forecasts, such as International Data Corp.'s (IDC) prediction of a 78% compound annual growth rate through 1992 for U.S. LAN-based office systems, tout revenues reaching $218 million. These estimates dovetail neatly with three converging trends, according to analysts: Downsizing the capabilities of traditional host-based office automation products _ such as Data General Corp.'s CEO, IBM's Professional Office System (Profs) or Digital Equipment Corp.'s All-In-1 _ onto a LAN. A push from personal computer users for better integrated applications that facilitate improved information access and exchange throughout the enterprise. The emergence of CCITT's X.400 transport mechanism, which will be used to link many of these systems to one another. When this catches up to E-mail technology, it could result in increased coupling between applications and E-mail vendors, whether via strategic alliances or acquisitions, analysts said. The impetus is obvious. At the same time users are pressing LAN providers to offer E-mail capabilities, integrated office systems suppliers are looking at E-mail as a conduit on which to build their applications and as a way to extend the reach of their OA and groupware offerings. Both trends promise to take E-mail technology _ and potentially its suppliers _ further than either could go alone. E-mail by itself was less than a roaring success, claimed Thomas White, president of Action Technologies, Inc., which sells groupware that incorporates electronic messaging. ``But once you [use] mail, you really need other integrated services to make it worthwhile, and it must work with the environment you have,'' White said. It must also talk to minicomputer- and host-based messaging and office automation systems, added David Taylor, director of the Gartner Group's Inter-Enterprise Systems group. Moving on up The consensus among speakers at a recent user panel on E-mail at Networld '89 Boston was that users are trying to migrate from midrange host-based E-mail systems such as Profs to LAN products, which tend to have more features and are less expensive, said IDC analyst Paul Thomas, who attended the session. This has led to a reconceptualization of E-mail, Taylor said. Once seen as a mere messenger, it is now viewed as providing the ability to incorporate and move binary information, whether graphics, voice, text or image, he said. Taylor added his name to the growing list of those who see E-mail providers becoming acquisition targets to a much greater extent during the next few years than they have been. One such merger has already taken place this year. Enable Software, a supplier of network-based integrated office systems software to the government, recently purchased Conetic Systems, Inc.'s Higgins E-mail and groupware application. By Patricia Keefe, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Wollongong idles 10% of w Author : Patricia Keefe Source : CW Comm FileName: wollo2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: PALO ALTO, Calif. _ Operational expansion without the revenue to support it has forced The Wollongong Group, a developer of internetworking software, to lay off 20 workers _ 10% of its personnel. The cuts will come largely from the company's administrative staff, according to President Herb Martin. Based on last year's growth figures, Wollongong budgeted for a 55% growth rate in its first quarter, ended in September. ``We made an error in planning,'' Martin said, noting the company has nonetheless been profitable for 17 consecutive quarters. The layoffs followed the February cancellation of Wollongong's proposed merger with OEM partner Advanced Computer Communications of Santa Barbara, Calif., which makes communications devices. Both firms are privately held. According to Martin, after ``laborious'' negotiations, it came down to a control issue: ``You had two guys who didn't want to relinquish control over their companies.'' The two firms will continue their cross-OEM relationship, which netted Wollongong $1 million last year. ``We're still interested in a potential merger or acquisition, but we're not actively pursuing it at the moment,'' Martin said. PATRICIA KEEFE <<<>>> Title : NET enlists Cisco as LAN Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: cis Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: REDWOOD CITY, Calif. _ Recovering from an unsuccessful attempt to acquire local-area network vendor Excelan, Inc. last summer, Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. (NET) is mustering another attack on the LAN interconnectivity market _ this time with Cisco Systems, Inc. as its partner. The two companies announced an OEM and technology agreement last week under which NET will initially resell Cisco's line of routers and bridges and eventually integrate the products into its own line of T1 switches. The move is in response to increasing customer demand for transparent access to resources across geographically distributed LANs, according to NET product manager Julie Dmytryk. While bridge vendors abound, Cisco is one of just a few companies that sell true routers, according to Dmytryk. Unlike bridges, routers can make intelligent use of the addressing, security and management capabilities of specific types of networking systems such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and Digital Equipment Corp.'s Decnet, according to Dmytryk. These features are crucial to NET users who need to coordinate communications across increasingly complex T1 networks, she added. Broad protocol support Cisco's routers stand out from the competition by virtue of their broad protocol support, Dmytryk said. The products currently support TCP/IP, Decnet and Xerox Corp.'s Xerox Network Systems. They will support Open Systems Interconnect by the third quarter and Fiber Distributed Data Interface by early next year, a company spokesman said. The agreement with Cisco will provide NET with a much-needed entry point into the burgeoning internetworking market, which will expand from $58 million in 1987 to $544.8 million in 1991, according to a December 1987 report by market research firm Forrester Research, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. Forrester will adjust these figures upward, if at all, in this year's report, Forrester analyst Mary Modahl said. NET needs to make its move quickly because rivals such as Digital Communications Associates, Inc., Infotron Systems Corp. and Newbridge Networks, Inc. are already providing bridges as a way to generate more data traffic over their T1 switches, Modahl said. NET also needs to differentiate its products from the competition, she added. The companies said they will elaborate on their plans for integration of NET switches and Cisco routers sometime in the spring. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Suppliers play catch-up w Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: asme Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Third-party IBM Application System/400 memory suppliers are scrambling to match the 40% price cuts that IBM unexpectedly announced late last month. IBM's move caused at least two suppliers to redo their math on the eve of product announcements last week. EMC Corp. had planned to jump into the AS/400 memory market last week by introducing a $16,000 8M-byte board but instead made its debut with a $9,600 8M-byte board. IPL Systems, Inc., which had planned to introduce a 16M-byte board in the $30,000 range, came out with a $20,000 board last week. The upset comes early in the life of the third-party AS/400 market. Only a handful of companies have been shipping memory products. IPL, one of the first out with an 8M-byte card in late 1988, has about 50 customers so far, said Robert Berg, IPL's vice-president of sales. In addition to cutting the price on the 16M-byte card, IPL copied IBM's 40% reduction on its 8M-byte card and will now sell it for $10,000, down from $17,000. IPL's revised price comes in at $2,000 less than IBM's revised price. Locom Corp., another memory supplier, also dropped its prices by 40% last week. The company will now sell 8M-byte boards for $7,000 instead of $12,000 and 16M-byte boards for $14,000, down from $24,000. User appeasement Consultants and suppliers said IBM's pricing move was meant to appease users who have been complaining about the AS/400's memory requirements. It was not intended to bash third-party competitors, although it consequently did, they added. Michael Egan, vice-president of midrange marketing at EMC, said he has lived through hundreds of price cuts, but ``this is the first time I've seen such a big reduction.'' ``This surely has a profit-margin impact,'' Berg said. ``It's not unprofitable but is certainly less so.'' Consultants said that several third-party suppliers will be hard-pressed to offer greatly reduced prices on a per-megabyte basis, which may hurt them in small volume sales. With the price cut, IBM is now offering memory at $1,500 per megabyte. EMC is selling at $1,250, and IPL sells at $1,200. By Rosemary Hamilton, CW staff <<<>>> Title : American explains its Sab Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: amr2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: NEW YORK _ With American Airlines seeming to fare well in the computer reservation systems (CRS) wars, attendees at a conference here last week questioned the wisdom of the airline's decision to combine its profitable Sabre system with Delta Air Lines' Datas II CRS, which has a much smaller market share than Sabre. According to Russell Harrison, president and chief operating officer of AMR Information Services, a subsidiary of AMR Corp. and sister company of American Airlines, American's decision was spurred by many factors. Harrison cited the increased regulatory attention Sabre has been getting from the federal government because it is the only major independent CRS remaining; the long-standing argument that CRSs should not be a competitive tool; the $650 million that American will receive from Delta and potential profits by selling the system to other airlines; and the higher share of bookings the combined CRS would likely bring about. Speaking at a meeting of the Financial Executives Institute, Harrison noted that with the proposed combined system, American and Delta would each own 50% of the system, and each could sell half of its 50% of the system to other airlines for $20 million per percentage point. ``It is entirely possible that American might go down to as low as 10% ownership over time,'' he added. American spokesman John Hotard said the airline is still awaiting word from the U.S. Department of Justice. ``The Department of Justice does not have to approve it _ it could say no.'' A decision is expected within 90 days. During his talk, Harrison outlined AMR Corp.'s technological efforts, which he said he believes will rival the Sabre system in its innovation. He said that the time has come for the airline to once again try to move ahead of its competitors. During the next five years, Harrison predicted, American will move into these technologies: Image processing, to eliminate paperwork and speed up processes for its Advantage frequent-flyer program. Knowledge-based systems, to help make decisions on whether or not to risk overbooking a flight, basing those decisions on historical data. Expert systems, to assist the airline when difficult situations arise, such as where to reroute planes if a snowstorm closes a major airport. The latest and riskiest investment the airline has made, Harrison said, is its $170 million investment to bring about a totally integrated office for the AMR employees. The platform was designed to eliminate paper and ``enable people to operate smarter and faster. It was designed to change the way we operate,'' Harrison added. By Alan J. Ryan, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Archive Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: blurb Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: It was ``General'' H. Ross Perot to the rescue 10 years ago as he free-lanced a commando raid into Iran to liberate a pair of EDS engineers . . . But 10 years before that, patriotism took a back seat to survival as computer science grads flocked to firms handling special government contracts to escape the military draft . . . And it was 18 years ago this month that investigators blamed the disappearance of 2,800 railroad boxcars on a computer. Some kind of cache memory they had back then. <<<>>> Title : Expanded access Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: edit36 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: THE HALLMARK OF a skillfully designed information system is ease of user access to data, with the data itself being in a usable and complete form. The same is true of news journals. A publication may contain the very best and most useful information available, but if the reader can't get to it easily, that information may as well not exist. With this in mind, the editors of Computerworld have always held that access to the information within our pages is at least as important as the information itself. That was why we redesigned the paper from top to bottom two years ago, and we have continually refined that award-winning design ever since. This week we are presenting some more changes, each designed to make the paper an even more useful tool for our 130,000 subscribers. . The biggest change is on the page 2 table of contents. There, in addition to the weekly index of stories, we proudly present Executive Briefing. Readers perusing this new feature can obtain an analysis and overview of the week's major pieces of special interest to information managers. Executive Briefing was created in direct response to your concerns that, by virtue of our size, it may be difficult at times to locate information pertinent to your specific needs. Second, we have redesigned the Management section, renaming it Manager's Journal. Our intent is to sharpen the focus of the section on the most salient issues and challenges facing IS managers. Our new weekly Executive Track column will keep you abreast of the movements of your peers within the IS community, a sort of Who's Who in IS. Finally, the Microcomputing section is now called PCs & Workstations; henceforth, it will feature both news and applications from the rapidly developing low-end workstation front. (The Systems & Software section will continue to cover the high-end, multiuser workstation issues.) This section will boast an upsurge in coverage of PC-related applications in general because readers are increasingly interested in seeing how their peers across the country are managing and controlling the end-user explosion. Taken in sum, the changes were made with the dynamic _ and at times befuddling _ IS environment in mind. Our 55-member editorial staff is, far and away, the largest and most experienced staff of any IS journal. And being the only such publication that readers can't get free, we know we have to work that much harder for your loyalty. We hope our weekly efforts are that much more accessible to you now. Drop a line to let us know what you think, or dial up the modem of our new bulletin board and leave a message for the editor at 508-626-0165. <<<>>> Title : Changing the focus on vir Author : Janet Ruhl Source : CW Comm FileName: ruhlet Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: I was shocked to see you publish the following statement in John McAfee's computer virus article: ``The single most effective policy that can be implemented in a corporate environment is to prohibit the use of public-domain and shareware software programs.'' I challenge McAfee to show me a single documentable case of a virus originating in or being spread by a shareware or public-domain program supplied by a reputable source such as Compuserve or Nelson Ford's Public Software Library. These organizations pay particular attention to checking the software they distribute for suspicious code. How about running an article about the bug-free, cheap and powerful shareware products that have come on the market in the last year? I'd be happy to write it! Janet Ruhl Ruhl Computer Services Windsor, Conn. <<<>>> Title : Changing the focus on vir Author : Fred Crowden Source : CW Comm FileName: crowlet Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: ``Managing the virus threat'' recommends corporations establish a blanket policy forbidding the use of public-domain and shareware software products, but I find that this does not differentiate between the two types of software, nor does it address the benefits available from the shareware market. Public-domain software is typically acquired without guarantees or any knowledge of the author. Shareware, on the other hand, usually has a single entrepreneur or a small company responsible for support and providing registered copies. The close link between programmer and customer and the financial incentive greatly reduces the threat of wrong intent. Shareware lets users ensure the product meets their needs before buying, has improved productivity and has sharpened my technical skills. The level of sophistication offered by many shareware products has far outpaced the average user I support. We need not sacrifice such benefits without question because of the fear created by the virus threat. To do so would miss the real source of the problem and would declare viruses the winner. The author is right on the money when he states that ``the indiscriminate duplication of public-domain programs makes auditing and tracking them very difficult.'' But to put all the sources of shareware products in that same category is laying a bum rap on a small segment of the software market that really deserves better. Fred Crowden EDP Audit Supervisor Public Service Co. of New Mexico Albuquerque, N.M. <<<>>> Title : Changing the focus on the Author : Mark Goretsky Source : CW Comm FileName: gorlet Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: John McAfee's computer virus article was by far the most informative article on viruses that I've read to date. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to read his views firsthand, instead of the incomplete and second-hand accounts from numerous press reports of his activities. It's clear that Mr. McAfee is the leading figure in the virus wars, and I would like to thank you for adding his insights to the general body of knowledge on the subject. Mark Goretsky Computer consultant Sunnyvale, Calif. <<<>>> Title : RISC no risk Author : Foye M. Troute Source : CW Comm FileName: troutlet Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: ``It's a do-or-don't year for HP'' [CW, Jan. 9] refers to problems that existed at the time of the introduction of the HP 3000 Series 900 machines. We are a rapidly growing Hewlett-Packard Co. shop (Series 48, 70 and 950) that is about 50% finished migrating from the Series 70 to the Series 950. More than 95% of what we have moved to the MPE-XL machine is in native mode so we can reap the benefits of the reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture _ and the benefits are there. Concerning migration _ it isn't a problem and it isn't difficult. We have had a few hiccups (which are to be expected), but HP has been right there to help us when we needed it. Regarding performance, we have some applications that are showing a 70% to 80% reduction in processing time. The performance improvements are very application-dependent, but the machine meets or exceeds every specification that HP has released on it. The bottom line is that we are very pleased with our HP 3000 Series 950. The machine works, it's very fast, and it's easy to use. Going with RISC is not a risk with the Series 950! Foye M. Troute Director, MIS Tire Kingdom Lake Park, Fla. <<<>>> Title : When your superuser leave Author : Robert D. Hargro Source : CW Comm FileName: hargrove Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: You probably have some in your department. You definitely have some in your organization. They are the end users who adapt a little more quickly than their peers to the new technology or systems that you provide. Many of these users have emerged as experts within their departments and act as consultants to fellow users. Whether working on a mainframe application or armed with their PCs, they have developed into ``superusers.'' Superusers fill an obvious need, performing a function often unwanted by both the MIS people who installed the new system or the more conservative end users who were comfortable with the old way of doing things. Relying on the superuser offers many advantages over the traditional MIS-user relationship. For example, the setup offers flexibility and speed. Users can usually get immediate attention for their small jobs instead of being told they'll be added to an ever-growing backlog. Also, there are few bureaucratic procedures to bog down a project. No forms for direct access storage devices, no change control, no nonsense. Superusers will try new things and are far less burdened by the ``This Is The Way We Have Always Done It Syndrome.'' Many are indeed true innovators, willing to combine their newly acquired technical expertise with their knowledge of how the business functions to produce some remarkable and useful results. Acting as the liaison to MIS, the superuser may become the center of an entire new department designed around him in recognition of his value. For instance, a superuser who spearheaded the implementation and acceptance of a mainframe package may be tapped to start up a client-support department. This arrangement works well until the time _ and it happens to all organizations eventually _ when the superuser leaves. It is then frequently discovered, in an atmosphere of panic, that the superuser's duties were neither institutionalized nor even written down. The special reports he ran for the chief executive officer are nowhere to be found. ``Hmm. I wonder what subdirectory they were on and what they were called?'' is a likely question to be asked. There is an eerie sense that this problem has been faced before, as indeed it was back when early programmers ran payrolls from card decks secreted away in their desk drawers, and accounting closings depended on the health and presence of a Ralph or Ramona. The lesson has been forgotten: Written procedures _ documentation, quality assurance, change control _ make the department, not any one individual, no matter how super. The departure of the superuser can also adversely affect the political atmosphere of the company. Users who were used to relying on a special resource now find a void. Their raised expectations are quickly dashed. Hostility toward MIS rapidly escalates. What can MIS do? Are we doomed to keep reliving the superuser feast and famine? One solution that has been bandied about in the trade publications for the past couple of years is to grow your own superuser rather than depend on one developing out of the end-user ranks. Growing your own requires instilling business expertise into someone on your technical staff. Though business knowledge is now often considered mandatory within MIS, teaching it to some of your technical people may be difficult. Teaching hurdles The first impediment lies in the nature of the personnel who are involved. Most people enter MIS because of an aptitude and/or desire to work in a technological environment _ not to become a purchasing agent, an accountant or a financial analyst. Second, most MIS personnel exhibit a loyalty to their profession but not necessarily to their organization. Thus, it is difficult to convince someone that knowledge of the business they work in is paramount to technological expertise. Furthermore, the market itself does little to promote the importance of business knowledge. One can easily find ads in local newspapers for programmers or database specialists, but try finding an organization that seeks an MIS professional with a firm understanding of Corporation X's financial system. However difficult growing your own business experts/technicians may appear, it is by no means impossible. One method is to tell the technician that for a designated period of time, he will become a user. He will report to accounting perhaps, where he will do data entry, a little light filing to learn the paper data flow and perform all those functions that interface with the computer. Several things may happen. Your technical staffer may learn that not all problems demand technical solutions, or he may quit. With a solid understanding of the system, he might be able to determine when procedural, rather than technical, solutions would apply or learn that design richness, while technologically nifty, may have little to do with efficiency. He might even get a glimmer of the world the user sees and learn that personal computers, mainframes or calculators are simply tools, not objects of worship, and as such, are merely means to achieving the company's business ends. That is a lesson that the superuser who grows out of the end-user ranks already knows. By Robert D. Hargrove; Hargrove is security and contingency planner at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. <<<>>> Title : The paths to software qua Author : Robert L. Glass Source : CW Comm FileName: glass1 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: When you strip away the trappings from who is responsible for software quality, it comes down to a new variation on an old theme: management theory. There are basically three theories worth talking about. Theory X speaks of management control. It says that people inherently dislike work, they have to be coerced into doing it, and they like to be told what to do. Theory Y speaks of technologist control. It says people do not inherently dislike work, they can exercise self-direction and learn to work responsibly, and their commitment to objectives depends on appropriate rewards. Theory Z speaks of shared control. It says that people work best toward goals they have helped establish; that once people buy into these goals, you can trust them to perform; and if the people share a common set of values, they can develop workable project goals. There is a chronology of software development that corresponds with these theories. In the early days, when software was an art and a craft, Theory Y was in force. Programmers were assumed to be competent and responsible, and management pretty much left the achievement of quality up to them. However, there was always the nagging feeling both from a management and a research point of view that we could do a better job of producing software. Not just better, but BETTER. The advocates for change began hypothesizing on the automation of the software professional's art in the same way that other skilled crafts had evolved into assembly-line processes. Acting before the reality of automation had really occurred, management of software development gradually converted to the Theory X approach, the one most appropriate for managing the de-skilled people that software developers had not yet come to be. Discipline became the keyword for software management, standards became the means of defining quality, and quality assurance became the organizational approach for achieving it. Then the facade of automatic programming slowly crumbled. David Parnas, a professor at Queens University in Ontario, fired the first shot in his ``Parnas Papers'' on the Strategic Defense Initiative. ``I believe that the claims that have been made for our automatic programming systems are greatly exaggerated,'' he wrote, concluding ``. . . there will be no substantial change from our present capability.'' Fred Brooks, a professor at the University of North Carolina, fired the second shot in his ``No Silver Bullet'' article. Software development, Brooks said, is complex work and always will be. Don't expect any silver bullets to slay the werewolf of software complexity, he said. Even more recently, two of the researchers deeply involved in the field of automated programming fired a third salvo. Charles Rich and Richard C. Wa- ters, MIT professors, called automatic programming a ``cocktail-party myth,'' saying they expect evolutionary progress toward that goal but no breakthroughs. We in the software field are still absorbing these opinions. I do not see any evidence yet that the positions of Parnas, Brooks and Rich and Waters have caused any change of direction in how we go about planning to build software. One of the changes that has to come about when they are absorbed is the gradual withdrawal from Theory X management. Once we give up on the idea of using de-skilled software developers, it simply does not make sense to coerce and herd skilled professional workers toward the goal of quality products. What will it mean to withdraw from Theory X management? Well, it will not mean completely moving away from such things as discipline, standards and quality assurance. It will not mean that, because of all the creative spirit needed for skilled software development, huge software must still be developed in team and organizational settings. And discipline, standards and quality assurance are ways of maintaining order in an atmosphere that could otherwise degenerate into chaos. It will, however, mean attaching new meaning to these terms. Discipline and quality assurance will be tempered with shared responsibility. Standards will be tempered with wisdom and parsimony. Will we, on discarding the Theory X approach, return to Theory Y? Probably not. Software has gotten to be too big an enterprise _ tackling problems that are orders of magnitude bigger than we used to even dream of _ to go back to those freewheeling days. Theory Z is probably where we will end up _ shared responsiblity for software's goals, their definition and their achievement and the realization that quality products come from motivated, quality people using adequately funded quality processes. But to leave behind the problems of Theory X and move on to the future of a Theory Z appoach, we need to look back. Remembering the days of the software developer who built quality products because any other approach was unthinkable, we can carve out a future in which that basic tendency is harnessed in some meaningful way in the new, massive world of software development. If we look backward accurately enough, we will begin to get a vision of where the future ought to be. By Robert L. Glass; Glass is president of Computing Trends, a software engineering education and consulting company based in State College, Pa. <<<>>> Title : Horror of a hacker in the Author : Glenn Rifkin Source : CW Comm FileName: prison Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: As the bars slide shut with a bang, the new prisoner feels an empty, ominous feeling in his stomach as the sound of freedom echoes away. He looks at the steel bars for a long time and then turns toward the two men sharing his cell. The bear-like one, at least 6 feet tall and 300 pounds, has a gold loop earring shining next to his bald pate. The other, a small, dark weasel of a man who chews incessantly on a toothpick, looks the young newcomer over. ``What you in for, kid?'' the weasel asks with a snarl. ``Yeah, whaddaya, a cop killer?'' the hulk adds. ``Hacking,'' the young man replies self-consciously. ``Hacking? Whaddaya mean hacking? You moidered a guy and hacked him up?'' the weasel demands. ``Whaddaya make outta dat, Monsta? Dis guy don't look like much of a hacker to me.'' ``You're right, Looie,'' the big one says. ``He don't look like he could hurt a flea.'' ``Computers,'' the new prisoner says quickly. ``What? You moidered a computer? What's he talkin' about, Monsta?'' ``Geez, I don't know, Looie.'' ``I didn't murder anybody,'' the young man replies. ``I am a hacker. I broke into the computer system at the Defense Department, and . . .'' ``He's a B&E man, Looie, a lousy thief,'' the big guy announces. ``So wha' happend kid, they catch you climbing tru da window? ``No, no, you don't understand. I broke into the system, the Defense Department system. I used a personal computer in my apartment and broke into the files electronically. That's what a hacker does.'' The other prisoners look at each other skeptically. ``No way, kid. I knew Murray the Hacker before dey toasted him. He used to hack up little ol' blue-haired ladies and make off with their Social Security checks. He was one nasty SOB. Now he was a hacker. I don't know bout dis computer stuff,'' Looie says. ``Look, I destroyed files worth almost $200,000. I really messed up their system. I published passwords, telephone numbers and directions on how to breach their system all over the electronic bulletin boards. I am one mean dude.'' The two other prisoners look at each other and begin giggling, and then they break into gales of laughter. Faces red, doubled over, they scream with hysterics. ``Oooh, my side's startin' to hurt, Looie,'' the hulk howls. ``Me too, Monsta. Wait til the boys in the shower room meet dis guy. Da Hacker! What kind a time you doin'?'' The young man grows scared and then turns defiant. ``Well, it takes intelligence and guts to do what I did. I got nine months . . . without parole,'' he almost shouts. ``What the heck are you in for?'' The two prisoners stop laughing and gulp for air. ``Nine months! Nine months. Did ya hear dat, Monsta? Hey, Monsta, tell him how long you're in for,'' Looie says. ``I think it was 35 years last time,'' Monsta replies. ``Yeah, dat's right. I done some bad stuff.'' ``Course, it was nothin' like this wild man,'' Looie sneers. ``Dis guy messes wid computers. Wait 'til Bugsy hears about dis. Oooh, kid. Welcome to the joint.'' With that, the young man turns and starts pounding on the bars. ``Guard! Guard! There's been a mistake, a serious mistake. I'm in the wrong cell. I'm just a hacker. This isn't the white-collar-crime block. Come quickly.'' His cellmates just sit and smile in amusement. The weasel lies back on his bunk and says through the side of his mouth, ``Ya know, Monsta, dis prison is really goin' to hell. They're throwin' just about any scum in here dese days.'' By Glenn Rifkin; Rifkin is a Computerworld senior editor. <<<>>> Title : A software extension for Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swsdi Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A software extension for IBM's VM/XA has been announced by SDI. Called VM Magic/XA, the system software reportedly allows any guest operating system and its application software to utilize any type of direct-access storage device. This is done without change to programs, job control language or operating system release levels, the vendor said. Pricing ranges from $10,000 to $40,000, depending on system environment. SDI 1700 S. El Camino Real San Mateo, Calif. 94402 415-572-1200 <<<>>> Title : Autodesk, Inc. is shippin Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swautode Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Autodesk, Inc. is shipping a new release of Autosolid, the company's solid-modeling system for mechanical computer-aided engineering applications. Version 3.0 reportedly offers automatic finite-element mesh generation as well as options for defining mesh characteristics. Top-down assembly design capabilities are also provided. Designed for personal computer and workstation environments, the package is priced at $5,000. Autodesk 2320 Marinship Way Sausalito, Calif. 94965 800-445-5415 <<<>>> Title : Shaw Systems Associates, Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micshaws Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Shaw Systems Associates, Inc. has announced a collection and accounting tracking software system for IBM MVS, VSE, CICS or IMS environments. Designated CS/2000, the on-line system reportedly supports loans of any type _ installments, commercial and lines of credit _ as well as credit cards, leases, student loans and mortgages. Features include automatic identification of customers with multiple accounts and user control of screen formats. On-line training is also provided. CS/2000 is delivered under a license agreement at a cost of $95,000. Installation and training are included in the base price. Shaw Systems Associates Suite 600 6200 Savoy Houston, Texas 77036 713-782-7730 <<<>>> Title : Oak Software has offered Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swoaksof Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Oak Software has offered a word processing program for the IBM Application System/400 midrange computer. Called Oakword, the product reportedly includes a full-screen word-processing text editor, automatic pagination, automatic table-of-contents generation and an integrated spreadsheet math program. The company is offering Oakwood at an introductory price of $2,000, regardless of CPU model number. Oak Software 2nd Floor 435 N. Gulf Blvd. Indian Rocks Beach, Fla. 34635 813-596-0262 <<<>>> Title : Unisys Corp. has announce Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swunisys Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Unisys Corp. has announced a Unix OS-based Hotel Revenue Enhancement (HRE) system developed for the travel and hospitality industry. According to the vendor, the software offers a yield-management solution for both single and multiproperty hotel environments. It can be used at the property level, the central reservations level or in combination. According to the vendor, the system can track regional behavior trends by market segment as well as special rate and incentive program effectiveness, with exception reports detailing market behavior that deviates from the norm. The HRE system is priced from $15,000 to $50,000, depending on property size. Unisys P.O. Box 500 Blue Bell, Penn. 19424 215-542-2243 <<<>>> Title : Teradyne, Inc. has releas Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swterady Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Teradyne, Inc. has released Version 6.4 of Lasar, the organization's simulation software for the design and testing of complex, very large-scale integration devices and circuit boards. The product has been redesigned to cut fault-simulation runtimes with its support of distributed fault analyses in networked environments, the vendor said. Version 6.4 runs on Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS systems and Sun Microsystems, Inc. Series 3 workstations. It is available free of charge to Lasar users under Teradyne's software maintenance agreement. Pricing ranges from $15,000 to $280,000, depending on DEC VAX configuration. Teradyne 321 Harrison Ave. Boston, Mass. 02118 617-482-2700 <<<>>> Title : An expert system tool dev Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swbattel Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: An expert system tool developed to aid manufacturers and service organizations in selecting materials and processing parameters or diagnosing equipment and production problems has been announced by Battelle. CSRL, for Conceptual Structures Representation Language, facilitates the transfer of specialized knowledge and skills from experienced engineers to less technical personnel, according to the vendor. The product runs in both Apollo Computer, Inc. and Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS environments and is priced from $4,500. Battelle 505 King Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43201 614-424-3747 <<<>>> Title : Data General Corp. has in Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swdatage Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Data General Corp. has introduced a Wang Laboratories, Inc. Cobol conversion utility. DG/WCC will convert customer Wang VS Cobol application code sources to DG's AOS/VS Cobol. The product was designed to enable existing Cobol applications for the Wang environment to run on DG's Eclipse MV family of midrange computer systems. DG/WCC can be licensed for $14,500. DG 3400 Computer Drive Westboro, Mass. 01580 508-898-4051 <<<>>> Title : Business Computer Design Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swbcd Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Business Computer Design has announced another version of Documint, its automatic software documentation system. The latest release was designed specifically to run on IBM Application System/400 midrange systems and consists of 12 modules and has a 30-minute learning curve, the vendor said. It is available on a two-week acceptance basis to qualified users and is priced at $1,350. Business Computer Design 900 Jorie Blvd. Oak Brook, Ill. 60521 312-990-0900 <<<>>> Title : Business Software Technol Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swbusine Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Business Software Technology, Inc. has released Endevor/MVS 2.5, with the Automated Configuration Manager (ACM) and Software Control Language (SCL). Release 2.5 permits MVS systems personnel to capture and maintain a complete cross-reference of an application's system components, according to the vendor. The ACM provides automatic management of the program's physical configuration, while the SCL component allows users to define the logical relationships among software packages and to distribute them. License fees for the product with SCL range from $47,000 to $64,500. The ACM license fee is $14,500. BST Westboro Executive Park 114 Turnpike Road Westboro, Mass. 01581 508-870-1900 <<<>>> Title : Point 4 Data Corp. has an Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwpoint4 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Point 4 Data Corp. has announced a tower-style member of its Mark 386 series. The multiuser system is based on a 20-MHz, Intel Corp. 80386 microprocessor and runs under the Unix operating system, according to the vendor. It can support as many as 32 users and can accommodate up to 16M bytes of random-access memory. A base configuration includes two serial ports, a parallel port, a monitor port and an IBM Personal Computer AT-style keyboard. Pricing starts at $10,450. Point 4 Data 15442 Del Amo Ave. Tustin, Calif. 92680 714-259-0777 <<<>>> Title : Electronic Service Specia Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwess Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Electronic Service Specialists Ltd., a division of Bell Atlantic Corp., has announced a remote diagnostic service for troubleshooting and maintaining mainframe and minicomputer systems. The Rx-Link service provides system operators with the resources necessary to isolate and correct computer malfunctions on a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day basis. The service also performs remote diagnostics on system peripherals and controllers, according to Bell Atlantic. Electronic Service Specialists N92 W14612 Anthony Ave. Menomonee, Wis. 52051 414-255-4634 <<<>>> Title : Sola Electric, a unit of Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwsola Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Sola Electric, a unit of General Signal Corp., has announced microprocessor-based electronic power conditioners rated at 5, 10 and 15 kVA. The units were designed to provide large-system users with an improved-performance electronic alternative to ferroresonant technology. The products provide protection from virtually all AC power problems except total line failure and are priced from $3,495 to $6,998. Sola 1717 Busse Road Elk Grove Village, Ill. 60007 312-439-2800 <<<>>> Title : TLC S.E., Inc. has announ Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwtlcsei Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: TLC S.E., Inc. has announced the T1200 AC power monitor and diagnostic instrument. The handheld device can be used to determine if system problems are equipment- or power-related and will automatically check for correct electrical wiring, the vendor said. The internal monitor memory is saved for 48 hours, and the unit reportedly requires no programming or adjustments for operation. The T1200 is priced at less than $900. TLC 332 S. Juniper Escondido, Calif. 92025 619-432-8880 <<<>>> Title : Two compact 5000VA and 30 Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwisoreg Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Two compact 5000VA and 3000VA continuous on-line uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems are now available from Isoreg Corp. The Isoguard Continuous On-Line UPS devices reportedly feature sealed, no-maintenance batteries and an automatic bidirectional bypass circuit. The 5000VA 120V 60Hz model measures 21 by 25 by 29 in. and costs $7,595. The 3000VA version measures 10 by 25 by 29 in. and is priced at $5,495. Isoreg P.O. Box 486 410 Great Road Littleton, Mass. 01460 508-486-9483 <<<>>> Title : NCR Corp. has expanded it Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwncr Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: NCR Corp. has expanded its line of self-service terminal products with the introduction of the NCR 5682 shopping terminal. Designed for the retail industry, the unit includes a touch-video screen and IBM Video Graphics Array capabilities. Transactions are reportedly completed via magnetic cards or by touching the screen, and digitized sound is optional. The NCR 5682 is priced between $17,000 and $22,000. NCR 1700 S. Patterson Blvd. Dayton, Ohio 45479 513-445-5000 <<<>>> Title : Icot Corp. has announced Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwicotco Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Icot Corp. has announced the Telestripe/ Gold electronic funds transfer and point-of-sale transaction terminal. The device reportedly provides electronic credit authorization, draft capture and debit-transfer applications. The product includes 32K bytes of battery-backed random-access memory and is programmable in an industry-standard language, the vendor said. Available with either a Track 1 or Track 2 magnetic strip reader, the 20-key terminal is priced at $280. ICOT P.O. Box 5143 San Jose, Calif. 95150 408-433-3300 <<<>>> Title : Talaris Systems, Inc. ann Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwtalari Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Talaris Systems, Inc. announced that Hewlett-Packard Co.-Graphics Language plotter emulation (HP 7475A) is now available for its Printstation product line. The Talaris HP-GL implementation supports variable pen widths, the company said, and simulates pen colors using the halftone shading capabilities of the Printstations. The emulation comes standard on the 2492-B Printstation and is available as a $950 option on the Talaris 1590 and 1590-T Printstations. Talaris P.O. Box 261580 San Diego, Calif. 92126 619-587-0787 <<<>>> Title : Emulex Corp. has introduc Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwemulex Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Emulex Corp. has introduced two small computer systems interface host adapters for Digital Equipment Corp.'s Microvax 3500/3600 series computers. Both the UC07-III and the UC08-III are microprocessor-based, quadwide SCSI-to-Q-bus host adapters and are compatible with DEC's Digital Storage Architecture implementing Mass Storage Control Protocol for magnetic or optical disk operations, according to the company. The adapters are priced at $1,600 and $2,050, respectively. Emulex P.O. Box 6725 Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626 714-662-5600 <<<>>> Title : A device that connects a Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwdelphi Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A device that connects a host CPU with one or more small computer systems interface (SCSI) disk drives has been announced by Delphi Data, a division of Sparks Industries, Inc. The Cache Box family of SCSI disk cache controllers reportedly works with any SCSI disk and was designed to increase the effective speed of the mass storage device. Pricing starts at $3,990. Delphi Data Suite 6C 12155 Magnolia Riverside, Calif. 92503 714-354-2020 <<<>>> Title : A solid-state, semiconduc Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwimperi Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A solid-state, semiconductor memory system that interfaces to Hewlett-Packard Co. computers as if it were a rotating disk is now available from Imperial Technology, Inc. The Megaram-80 Solid-State Disk incorporates a 32M-byte memory module and reportedly has maximum storage capacity of 512K bytes per system. The unit is configured in a 7-in., rack-mounted chassis and costs $700 per megabyte. Imperial Technology 831 S. Douglas St. El Segundo, Calif. 90245 213-536-0018 <<<>>> Title : An 8mm cartridge tape sub Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwmicrot Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: An 8mm cartridge tape subsystem with Digital Equipment Corp. HSC compatibility has been introduced by Micro Technology, Inc. Designated the MA24, the device can operate unattended to back up as much as 2G bytes of data in approximately three hours, according to the vendor. The unit attaches directly to the HSC5X-CA card via Micro Technology's small computer system interface and is expected to be compatible with DEC's new HSC5X-DA card. Pricing ranges from $18,000 for a single-drive configuration to $153,000 for a 16-drive configuration housed in a 60-in. cabinet. Micro Technology 1620 Miraloma Ave. Placentia, Calif. 92670 714-630-2481 <<<>>> Title : Workstations catch the wa Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: markets Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: The workstation market, fueled by relatively inexpensive yet high-powered machines, is barreling along at double-digit growth rates. According to a recent study by Dataquest, Inc., a San Jose, Calif., market research firm, the market rocketed from about $2.7 billion in sales in 1987 to $4.1 billion in 1988, an annual growth rate of 52%. With workstations on only 20% of the engineering desktops worldwide and on less than 5% of desktops in corporate and university markets, there is plenty of room for growth, researchers said. In addition, the average price of a workstation has nose-dived at a rate of 20% per year. Sun Microsystems, Inc., the premier workstation company in market share, has been selling its highly popular Sun-3 product line as fast as it can make the machines. Sun has also touted its Sun-4, which now accounts for 25% of the company's revenue. Sun is readying a workstation based on its Scalable Processor Architecture (Sparc) that will run at 8 million instructions per second (MIPS) and be priced at about $7,000. The company is also readying a high-end Sparc-based system offering 20 MIPS for about $30,000 and a Motorola, Inc. 68030-based workstation that will sell for $6,000. ``Burdened with three hardware platforms and multiple accelerator options, Sun's product release cycle is approaching a gargantuan level of complexity,'' said analyst Lisa Thorell, who co-authored Dataquest's study with Kathleen Hurley. ``The question is not whether Sun can meet the technical challenges of 1989 but whether the company can learn to manage its organization faster than Digital and Hewlett-Packard can introduce leading-edge workstations.'' Second-ranked Digital Equipment Corp. is pushing hard to take over the top position. The company upped its market share 1.8% in 1988, largely at the expense of IBM and Apollo Computer, Inc., the researchers said. DEC's robust growth in 1988 principally reflected the success of its Vaxstation 2000 workstation line. The company's workstation sales in 1988 were driven by the company's greatest strength: the installed base of VMS users. But DEC finally made strategic moves for an assault on the workstation market. The company introduced the competitively priced Vaxstation 3100 (PVAX) workstation, which will run under VMS and Ultrix, and a high-end reduced instruction set computing (RISC) workstation based on Mips Computer Systems, Inc. technology. Hewlett-Packard Co. was the market's surprise last year, introducing several workstations ranging from the HP 340M to the high-end RISC-based HP 935 Turbo SRX workstation. HP, a relative newcomer to the technical workstation market, is quickly closing the gap between it and DEC, Dataquest noted. Apollo, once the No. 2 workstation supplier, fell to the No. 4 spot in 1988, relying too heavily on its key accounts for its revenue, Dataquest said. By Michael Alexander, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Atlas II esngine set for Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: atlas Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: REDMOND, Wash. _ Microrim, Inc. will try to carry the the personal computer database world on its shoulders when it releases Atlas II later this year. Atlas II, set for announcement this month, is an ambitious multiuser database engine coupled with graphical front-end tools that will run on a variety of PC platforms, said Marco Hegyi, vice-president of planning and new business development at Microrim. Hegyi was hired away from Ashton-Tate Corp. to head up Microrim's cross-platform database strategy. This strategy and the timing of product releases is remarkably similar to that of both Lotus Development Corp. and Microsoft Corp. Each of these newcomers to the PC database management system market plans to begin shipping engines and tools later this year. Microrim, however, will de part from most of its competitors in one important way. While most software firms OEM the database engines from more experienced vendors and develop the tools, Microrim plans to build both. At the core of the engine will be SQL, a terse but efficient way of accessing and manipulating data developed by IBM more than a decade ago. Microrim, however, stumbled in its first attempt to integrate SQL into its R:Base software last year. The firm created an incomplete implementation of the language and touched off a virulent reaction among SQL aficionados. Microrim pledges to do it right with its new engine, set for release later this year. This system will initially run under OS/2 on high-end Intel Corp.-based PCs. Later, the SQL-based engine will be ported to other architectures, including workstations from Sun Microsystems, Inc., Digital Equipment Corp. VAX minicomputers and, ultimately, IBM mainframes, Hegyi said. Can we talk? The engine will reportedly be able to communicate with other database systems through the use of a global data dictionary, Hegyi said. ``Within the dictionary is a map of where your information is stored. We then have controllers that are connected to our engine that will directly talk to other engines using SQL,'' he said. Intially, the engine will be able to directly read and write Dbase, R:Base and IBM OS/2 Extended Edition files. Later on, support for Oracle Corp. software, DEC's RDB, and IBM's DB2 will be added. The firm also hopes to leverage its strength in end-user application development by providing tools for the IBM Personal Computer and compatibles running Microsoft Windows or the OS/2 Presentation Manager. Microrim also plans a version for the Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh. The firm pledged that applications written for one interface will run, unchanged, on any other. In either case, Microrim is hoping to help usher in the new era of object-oriented database management. By Douglas Barney, CW staff <<<>>> Title : The Decstation3100: A Sun Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: pmax Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: PALO ALTO, Calif. _ Digital Equipment Corp's new Decstation 3100 was intended to be a direct assault on Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun-4 Sparc-based workstations. According to its developers, though, it is really more than that. The system, called P-Max in DEC's Palo Alto facility, embodies an experimental and shortened design cycle for the industry's second-largest computer manufacturer. In recent interviews, key DEC developers related the story of how P-Max came to life. The accelerated effort _ which reduced time from a year to eight months _ went so well, said DEC Worksystems internal consultant Jim Billmaier, that it is being studied by other DEC engineering groups for future use. ``We're doing a postpartum analysis right now,'' Billmaier said. ``We think we've found a new way to take advantage of the resources of a large corporation while reducing our time to market.'' The Decstation 3100 was, admittedly, DEC's response to losing part of its natural marketplace to its archcompetitor Sun. We were just determined to win,'' said Joseph E. DiNucci, U.S. manager of DEC's Worksystems group. ``We had done a good job of capturing the VMS marketplace, but too many times we had lost business because we didn't offer a Unix workstation.'' DEC had been selling the Vaxstation 2, a highly successful engineering/scientific workstation, since 1985. Sales of the Vaxstation series alone made DEC the No. 2 supplier of all workstations with a 23% market share, industry analysts said. In fact, DEC is second only to Sun itself. But DEC found it was losing business even in its own accounts to the emerging stable of reduced instruction set computing-based (RISC) Unix workstations from Sun and others. Industry analysts say DEC had the right instincts in responding to the Sun challenge. ``If you are an all-VMS shop, buying Vaxstations is all part of the deal,'' said Carl Flock, director of Dataquest, Inc.'s technical computer service. ``DEC is trying to break out of that. They have the idea that distributed processing has become so popular that they can't stay with a proprietary operating system in the long run.'' DEC made the decision in July 1987 to bring a Unix workstation to market in less than a year. But by spring, DEC had scrapped its original plans to develop a RISC-based system internally at DEC facilities in Seattle. That six-year project had been code-named Titan. Ironically, the Palo Alto designers used some of the 30 Titan systems to design the Decstation 3100. After deciding to buy RISC technology from outside sources, DEC elected to build on the Mips Computer Systems, Inc. R2000 RISC chip, which was already shipping in quantity. ``The R2000 had been out for a year by the spring of 1988,'' DiNucci said. ``It was real, and it had very sophisticated RISC compilers, which delivered high performance.'' A small design team _ principal engineer Michael Nielsen and another developer _ began designing the single-board machine within a 4-in.-high processor cabinet. One decision came right away: The byte-order should be made compatible with that of the VAX series. That move also ensured compatibility with the byte-order of millions of MS-DOS-based micros so MS-DOS-based systems could exchange files with the P-Max system. But this meant that the byte-order is reversed from that of Mips' workstations based on the same R2000 engine. Another design consideration was that the Decstation 3100 CPU be directly linked to its I/O devices without benefit of a backplane, thus decreasing I/O bottlenecks. Finally, a single-processor board would accept either a color video chip or a monochrome chip, allowing for one-step chip upgrades. By July 1988, DEC reassigned 15 software engineers from its New Hampshire offices to the DEC development lab here for the duration. The move was part of an effort to cut the planned development time by four months. ``Most development efforts at DEC take about two years,'' DiNucci said. ``The schedule was to be from April [1988] to April [1989], but by June, they said we should have it done by January.'' The Decstation 3100 was announced Jan. 10, along with a wide range of engineering/workstation hardware and software. The Decstation is not to be viewed as a point-product, DEC said. Nielsen and others are now working on expanding the $11,000 workstation, which runs at 12 million to 14 million instructions per second, into an entire product family. Users can expect variations that have higher and lower performance levels, DEC designers said. The next generation of Decstations, they indicated, might be built on the Mips R3000 chip, which is due out soon. The R3000 is being delivered now to computer vendors in sample quantities. Eventually, an entire range of upward-compatible products could be built on the Mips CPU, said David Korus, an analyst at Kidder, Peabody & Co. in New York. ``What Digital can do, from the low end to the high end, is deliver a common [operating system] and a common user interface, with one common set of applications,'' he said. And that would be analogous to DEC's own VMS strategy for the VAX. By Jean S. Bozman, CW staff <<<>>> Title : One man's PC is another m Author : William Brandel Source : CW Comm FileName: cancol Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: What is a workstation? Ever since Intel introduced the 80386 microprocessor, this question has been grappled with by every industry pundit and his brother. From their attempted answers, an industry cliche was born: ``The lines that separate PCs and workstations are now blurring.'' Blur no more. Beginning today, Computerworld is including low-end, single-user workstations in the same pool as high-powered IBM Personal Computers, compatibles and Apple machines. The reason is simple, if not obvious: High-powered PCs and low-end workstations are now being used to perform comparable tasks. And in the computer industry, it is the tool and how it is being used that is significant, not necessarily the name on it. This is not to say that there are no caveats that separate PC and workstation technology. But with the exception of reduced instruction set computing (RISC) technology, the hardware is already comparable in performance. Compare, for example, a DEC Vaxstation, a Sun Microsystems Sun-3 and an IBM Personal System/2 Model 80. All have basically the same power and features but run different op- erating systems. These are just separate roads to a common destination. It is conceivable that with the upcoming so-called 486 processor on its way from Intel and the advent of bus mastering, PCs will soon outperform these workstations. Look at PCs today. It is difficult to find even an 80286-based machine these days that is not offered with a mouse _ once the telling sign of workstations. PC screens and graphics technology have improved, and graphical user interfaces based on DOS and OS/2 now battle offerings from the Unix environment _ another former domain of workstations. Sun, a workstation vendor, sells a 386-based machine that runs both DOS and Unix. Apple, a PC vendor, markets a workstation that competes against the best of them. Phoenix Technologies, which became prominent as a DOS BIOS code vendor, is now offering Unix BIOS code along with AT&T's. The interface being offered by the Open Software Foundation is the Hewlett-Packard/Microsoft/DEC hybrid, which mixes and matches PC and Unix technology. It will compete against Presentation Manager, a PC user interface, and Decwindows, a workstation windowing environment. Where the technology comes from no longer presupposes its application. This is not good news for us pigeonholers. As industry observers, we like to simplify things for reasons of understanding and communications. As technology and its implementation changes, we must change our perceptions as well. So bid adieu to those blurry days of yore. It is time to focus on the market/ technology osmosis that has taken place and how we are using it. A workstation is simply a single-user machine with enough processing power and memory to perform semicomplex calculations and somewhat dazzling graphics. But let me be the first to warn you: The lines between low-end workstations and RISC-based machines are beginning to blur. Open desktop coup. Last week at Uniforum 1989, five companies got together to announce an alternative proposed industry standard to rival the leader in the industry. No, it's not the Extended Industry Standard Architecture consortium _it's the Open Desktop Five. DEC, Tandy, Locus, Relational Technology and The Santa Cruz Operation have ganged up to deliver a cost-effective, fully loaded alternative to Sun's 386I. But a significant factor worth noting is that DEC is now showing marketing savvy for its desktop systems. In this latest effort, DEC receives no royalties for contributing XUI _ no small token gesture, considering DEC has made a larger investment in Decwindows than any other software undertaking in its history. But by reaping no capital gains, DEC is effectively achieving two major goals in one fell swoop. First, by contributing _ not selling _ XUI as part of the deal, an economy of scale is attained for the package that blows away anything Sun currently offers. And if the package takes off, it increases momentum for XUI as an interface standard _ not a bad idea. A pretty good guy. Two weeks ago, IBM unveiled its latest weapon in its arsenal of low-end system strategies. This time it was a polished but straight-talking executive from Chicago named James Cannavino. Since Cannavino has taken the helm, IBM's Entry Systems Division (ESD) employees are talking a whole different game. Retailers and distributors matter, customers matter, and it's a kinder, gentler IBM. IBM can now afford to do this, as former ESD President William Lowe took almost all the heat as he established the beachhead for the controversial Micro Channel. But that was then. Customers are looking to Cannavino for compelling reasons to buy and use Micro Channel, how it will work with OS/2 and how it fits into IBM's Systems Application Architecture. This is no easy sell. But if Cannavino and IBM's entry systems folks don't draw a picture for customers by the time Comdex Spring '89 passes, this honeymoon will be over quicker than you can say John Tower. By William Brandel; Brandel is a Computerworld senior writer. <<<>>> Title : Client/server not deliver Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: front Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: The party started early last year. Database management systems vendors lined up with bold promises of seamlessly providing a variety of newly announced SQL-based database engines. For users beset by network bottlenecks and dependent on underpowered personal computer databases, relief was in sight. The answer is known as the client/server architecture, consisting of a multiuser database server tied to client workstations that support the application and interface. Yet a year later, these same users continue to bide their time until the servers _ and the impressive array of announced clients _ become available. These clients include Dbase from Ashton-Tate Corp., Borland International's Paradox, Dataease International, Inc.'s Dataease, Information Builders, Inc.'s PC/ Focus, Informix Software, Inc.'s Informix, Nantucket Corp.'s Clipper and Wordtech Systems, Inc.'s DBXL . The vendors of all these products have touted the largely undelivered client/server architecture. It still sounds great. Users could theoretically run their favorite applications while transparently accessing the power of shared relational databases sitting on inexpensive servers. But so far, all this sound and fury has signified nothing, analysts and users said. Problem solvers Users are anxious because the products promise to solve real-world problems by reducing network traffic, providing efficient shared databases and preserving user training in key productivity applications. Hilly Fuchs is one user champing at the bit. The Continental Grain Co. information center director is hoping to relieve peformance problems inherent with standard file servers, which get bogged down by multiple requests. Specifically, Continental is looking to replace an IBM System/36 with a personal computer local-area network for accounting and trading applications. ``The clear answer is a database server, so you don't have to pass as much data over the network,'' Fuchs said. Once these products arrive, many users will still wait for the market to pick a handful of standards, particularly on the engine side. ``I don't want to have applications hooked into a system that turns out not to be successful,'' said G. Jeffrey Knepper, director of advanced technology-tax for Touche Ross & Co. in Washington. ``We're waiting for the technology to settle down.'' Technical difficulties on both ends have kept the promised client/server world from appear ing in force. While a few products are currently shipping, the bulk will not begin to dribble out until spring, and there is no telling when all the promises will be fulfilled. A big part of the problem is that many vendors are trying to blend two very different architectures. The SQL-based engines use so-called set processing, which manipulates data in entire tables and uses the specific syntax of the SQL language for data access and manipulation. Most of today's PC DBMS products, on the other hand, are not set-processing-oriented. Instead, these packages work with data in a one-record-at-a-time fashion and have not been built from the beginning with SQL in mind. Blending the two worlds calls for kludgy and slow translations to the SQL language. In most cases, the vendors have played it cagey, releasing only the vaguest of ship dates. For those vendors that have been more specific, missed ship dates have been the norm. For instance, PC DBMS leader Ashton-Tate pledged to deliver Dbase IV as a front end to the Ashton- Tate/Microsoft/Sybase SQL Server by the end of last year. The new date? Spring. On top of all this was Lotus Development Corp.'s announcement of a graphical version of its 1-2-3 and a series of Lotus DBMS tools. These have not shipped either. Of all these, only tiny Wordtech Systems has shipped any sort of front end to any sort of back end. Wordtech sells a Dbase compiler that works with a variety of Oracle Corp. databases. All these products are supposed to move over to an equally high-profile array of SQL back ends, including SQL Server, OS/2 Extended Edition, Oracle and SQLbase. But SQL Server, originally scheduled for delivery in the second half of last year, is delayed until late April; IBM's OS/2 Extended Edition is still a memory-hogging single-user application; and Oracle will only say that its OS/2 Server will ship this year. Only Gupta Technologies, Inc. is shipping an OS/2 server product, but without the marketing clout of the big boys, Gupta has yet to catch fire. Another problem sure to confront users is rewriting of code. In some cases, applications will run unchanged against the server. But in many others, programmers have a chore awaiting them. Information Builders had to add a facility to translate Focus code into SQL to access data on a server. The product, which is ``near beta,'' should ship for OS/2 Extended Edition this June, said Kevin Quinn, product manager for PC/Focus for OS/2. ``The work we were doing was to talk SQL. Focus is not a relational SQL database. That is what took us so long,'' Quinn said. Focus applications, if written for a hierarchical style of database, will need recoding, Quinn said. The lesson in all this is twofold, analysts say. Do not believe everything you hear. And perhaps the best front ends will be the ones built from scratch by firms such as Microsoft Corp. and Lotus. Like the simpler ports, you will still have to wait for these to ship. By Douglas Barney, CW staff <<<>>> Title : IBM tunes up for publishi Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: desktop Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: BOULDER, Colo. _ While Apple Computer, Inc. chases IBM in corporate personal computing environments, it holds the lead on its nemesis in the desktop publishing market. IBM, finding itself in the unfamiliar position of lagging behind a rival, has responded with a new laser printer that can be connected to Apple's Macintosh PCs and networks using Appletalk connectors. The printer uses Adobe Systems, Inc.'s Postscript page description language. Bryan H. Standley, market support representative of IBM's Publishing Support Center headquartered here, conceded that IBM is playing catch-up with both Apple and Hewlett-Packard Co. in the desktop publishing race. ``It has been their market traditionally,'' Standley said. ``Apple has been a pioneer that brought publishing to the desktop. They deserve credit for such an accomplishment.'' IBM got off to a relatively late start in desktop publishing, introducing its first desktop laser printer in April 1987. The debut of that printer coincided with the unveiling of IBM's Personal System/2 line. ``It was decided to wait until the new, more powerful line of processors came along,'' Standley explained. While IBM readied the PS/2, Apple was selling desktop publishing systems to IBM's corporate customers. Many MIS executives who have traditionally purchased IBM Personal Computers or compatibles have said that desktop publishing offered them their first experience with the Macintosh. Impressed with the Mac's graphical user interface, a number of these MIS managers began purchasing them for other applications. Not enticing IBM's first desktop publishing system offered little to dissuade users from the Mac. Synda Matthews, an electronic publishing group industry analyst at Dataquest, Inc. in San Jose, Calif., said IBM's first printer was a disappointment. The printer's controller was in the PC, not the printer itself, so that it could not be shared, Matthews said. ``Postscript printers are too expensive for many people to be able to justify single use,'' she explained. Also, font-handling was more difficult with the IBM printer than with Apple's Laserwriter. ``They realized they have to do something,'' Matthews said. ``They recognized that IBMs and Macs were being shared in the same environment.'' With its latest printer, IBM has resolved some initial problems. The controller resides in the printer, font-handling has been improved, and it will ``plug-and-play'' with other desktop systems such as the Mac. At a price of $4,999 for a resolution of 300 dot/in. and a print speed of 6 page/min, it is competitive with other printers on the market. It contains a controller card with a 16.7-MHz Motorola, Inc. 68000 microprocessor and 2M bytes of random-access memory, allowing it to plug-and-play with the Mac. It can also be used with any PS/2, IBM PC XT or AT and compatibles. Standley said IBM is not ready to concede the desktop publishing market to rivals. ``IBM is very interested in desktop publishing,'' he maintained. ``We'd like to be the leader. This printer represents an awareness that customers move IBM equipment around in a mixed environment.'' By Julie Pitta, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Microsoft pledges OS/2 im Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: os2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: REDMOND, Wash. _ In an attempt to boost sluggish sales of OS/2, Microsoft Corp. promised operating system enhancements and claimed the scarcity of applications for the nearly 2-year-old system will end this year. At its annual systems software forum late last month, Microsoft pledged to provide users with a myriad of OS/2 improvements within the next year. These enhancements ranged from more efficient use of the Intel Corp. 80386 microprocessor's memory-handling capabilities to an updated high-performance file system and the use of object-oriented programming techniques within Microsoft's OS/2 Presentation Manager graphical interface. The object orientation will eventually move to the company's lineup of programming languages. Although Microsoft admitted the 386-specific version of OS/2 will not be available to users until 1990, the firm will ship an application developers' tool kit version of OS/2 for the 386 during the latter part of this year. Lee Reiswig, software strategy director of IBM's Entry Systems Division, noted that today's OS/2 does not match up with the hardware it runs on. He noted that IBM's goal for its OS/2 Extended Edition was to furnish software capable of taking advantage of the 386 processor's multitasking, protected-mode operations and virtual memory-address capabilities. ``What we've discovered is we have a long way to go to get the system software capable of exploiting the capabilities of today's hardware,'' Reiswig said. ``Today, we're still lagging a bit in trying to catch up with the hardware.'' Microsoft's planned enhancements for OS/2 will be binary-compatible with earlier OS/2 versions, thus requiring no rewriting of any applications, according to Microsoft. The vendor plans to eventually add elements such as an entirely new file system capable of storing file names with expanded names and attributes. Adrian King, general manager of Microsoft's OS/2 product group, said the performance of the improved OS/2 will be 100% better than earlier OS/2 releases, strictly through use of the new file system. He noted that such performance gains will also carry over to DOS applications running in OS/2's compatibility box. Unlike the file system currently used with MS-DOS, which limits file names to eight characters, the new OS/2 file system will support longer file names and extended file attributes such as author name and revision dates of a document. The release will also include performance improvements in disk caching and faster file access while adding support of much larger disk volumes, including standardized access to different media such as those used in compact disk/read-only memory drives, according to Microsoft. In addition, Microsoft's enhancements add full support of the 386 processor's ability to access the 32-bit address space. The updated OS/2 will also allow end users to run multiple DOS sessions concurrently and switch between them in a fashion similar to Microsoft's Windows/386 release. Microsoft said OS/2 for the 386 will use paging of memory instead of swapping segments of memory. The system will be able to simultaneously run several 640K-byte DOS applications in virtual-8086 mode within its 16M-byte address space _ unlike OS/2 Version 1.1, which ran only one ``compatibility box'' in real mode. By Patrick Waurzyniak, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Advanced Logic Research, Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micalr Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Advanced Logic Research, Inc. has introduced a series of Intel Corp. 80386-based 16-MHz, 20-MHz and 25-MHz small-footprint computers. Dubbed the Z-Series, both the 20-MHz and 25-MHz configurations offer 64K bytes of static random-access memory cache. All three systems include a standard IBM Video Graphics Array controller, one 1.44M byte 3 -in. floppy drive and up to 120M bytes of hard disk storage. The series is scheduled to begin shipments this month, with prices starting at $2,695. Advanced Logic Research 9401 Jeronimo Irvine, Calif. 92718 714-581-6770 <<<>>> Title : AST Research, Inc. has ex Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micastre Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: AST Research, Inc. has expanded its line of personal computers with the addition of two desktop systems. The entry-level Bravo/286 is based on an Intel Corp. 80286 processor. The 8-MHz machine reportedly includes 512K bytes of random-access memory and four expansion slots. Bravo/286 is priced from $1,095. The 32-bit Premium 386/16 is based on an Intel 80386, 16MHz processor and provides high-speed cache architecture for 80386-specific applications, the vendor said. Pricing ranges from $3,295 to $4,395. AST Research 2121 Alton Ave. Irvine, Calif. 92714 714-863-1333 <<<>>> Title : Copia International Ltd. Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: miccopia Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Copia International Ltd. has announced a set of programmer tools that can reportedly create, read, write or update Borland International Paradox or Ashton-Tate Corp. Dbase IV files. Called Accsys, the Borland version of the software program is priced at $395 for binary only and $795 for both binary and source code. According to the vendor, the Ashton-Tate version is scheduled for availability this month. Copia 1964 Richton Drive Wheaton, Ill. 60187 312-665-9830 <<<>>> Title : Neuron Data, Inc. has ann Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micneuro Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Neuron Data, Inc. has announced Version 3.0 of AIvision, its icon-based desktop accessory tool. The product was reportedly designed for creating interactive, graphical interfaces to applications generation by Neuron's Nexpert Object C-based expert system shell. It provides full color and large screen support, and the lastest release is said to offer a faster development environment. AIvision is priced at $500, and current users may upgrade to Version 3.0 for $100. Neuron Data 444 High St. Palo Alto, Calif 94301 415-321-4488 <<<>>> Title : Exim Services of N.A., In Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micexims Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Exim Services of N.A., Inc. has announced the latest addition to its Exim Tool kit family of products. Hypertext Reverence Facility (HRF) is an on-line reference guide for programmers working in the Microsoft Corp. Quickbasic 4.5 environment. The product contains technical and user information, as well as an error dictionary and Help screen facilities. HRF is priced at $49.95. Exim Services P.O. Box 5417 Clinton, N.J. 08809 201-735-7640 <<<>>> Title : A contact management pack Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: miceight Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A contact management package designed specifically for field sales personnel is now available from Eighty/20 Software, the company said. Called Expeed, the product reportedly tracks schedules, keeps historical data and electronically files all contact correspondence. A word processor and expense tracking module are also included, the vendor said. The list price is $249, with an introductory price of $189. Unlimited telephone support is included, according to the company. Eighty/20 Software 1107 Hazeltine Blvd. Chaska, Minn. 55318 612-448-8895 <<<>>> Title : ASA/Micro-MRP has introdu Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micasami Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: ASA/Micro-MRP has introduced Version 6.0 of Micro-MAX MRP, the company's manufacturing resource planning control system for IBM Personal Computers and compatibles. The software reportedly includes modules for inventory planning and control, production, accounting and purchasing applications. The program now features pull-down window interfaces and an expanded sales-order entry module, according to the vendor. Pricing ranges from $495 to $19,995, depending on system configuration, the vendor said. ASA/Micro-MRP 1st Floor Century Plaza 1 1065 E. Hillsdale Blvd. Foster City, Calif. 94404. 415-345-6000. <<<>>> Title : Symsoft Corp. has updated Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micsymso Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Symsoft Corp. has updated its graphics program for IBM Personal Computers, Personal System/2s and compatible machines. Hotshot Graphics 1.5 was designed to complement word processors and page layout programs by speeding and simplifying the preparation of artwork, the vendor said. The software supports desktop publishing, slides and other graphic presentation applications and reportedly includes a database directory and full-page editing capabilities. Hotshot Graphics is priced at $249. Symsoft 444 1st St. Los Altos, Calif. 94022 415-941-1552 <<<>>> Title : Xyquest, Inc. recently an Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micxyque Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Xyquest, Inc. recently announced that technical support services that are provided for its Xywrite customers have been expanded. The expansion reportedly will include additional technical support hours, a new electronic reference board and a subscription service to Xywrite Application Notes. Customers will also have the opportunity to update to the most current version of Xywrite III Plus, according to the vendor. Registered users can receive a password to the information line for an annual subscription fee of $50. Xyquest 44 Manning Road Billerica, Mass. 01821 508-671-0888 <<<>>> Title : Berkeley Softworks has re Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micberke Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Berkeley Softworks has released Geochart, a chart-generator software package, for use with Commodore Business Machines, Inc.'s Models 64 and 128 computers. The product was developed to graphically display numerical data from word processing, spreadsheet and database files and is capable of charting up to 80 values in nine formats, according to the vendor. Features include a what-you-see-is-what-you-get format, pull-down menus, icons and windows. The package is priced at $29.95. Berkeley Softworks 2150 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, Calif. 94704 415-644-0883 <<<>>> Title : Strategic Software Planni Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micstrat Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Strategic Software Planning Corp. has enhanced its stand-alone project planning software system. Project Outlook was written specifically for the Microsoft Corp. Windows environment and offers a fully graphical user interface, the vendor said. Version 2.0, which is scheduled to ship at the end of the first quarter, reportedly provides a scheduling and tracking system that adheres to strict critical-path methodology. The software is priced at $495, the vendor said. Strategic Software Planning 1 Athenaeum St. Riverview II Cambridge, Mass. 02142 617-577-8800 <<<>>> Title : Autoease, Inc. has releas Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micautoe Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Autoease, Inc. has released the Automaster Template Series for users of Autodesk's Autocad Release 10. The templates were designed to simplify the Autocad applications. They include a set of custom macros with such features as multiple line command and schedule generation, according to the vendor. The templates cost $245 each. Autoease 1325 S. 800 East Orem, Utah 84058 801-224-8833 <<<>>> Title : A database tagging utilit Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micpubli Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A database tagging utility has been released by Publishing Solutions. Called Datatag, the product was reportedly developed for use with Interleaf, Inc.'s Publisher and TPS, versions 3.0 and 4.0. The software package allows the users to tag and code fields in a comma-delimited ASCII database file, the vendor said. Datatag is priced at $249. Publishing Solutions Suite 17-T 205 E. 78th St. New York, N.Y. 10021 212-288-2470 <<<>>> Title : Lerman Associates has ann Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: miclerma Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Lerman Associates has announced Extra K, a memory management product for use with Lotus Development Corp.'s Symphony spreadsheet software. The memory utility reportedly allows users to selectively unload the four nonspreadsheet portions of Symphony and reuse that memory in their worksheet. Extra K costs $79.95 plus $4.00 for shipping and handling. Lerman Associates 12 Endmoor Road Westford, Mass. 01888 800-233-4671 <<<>>> Title : An object-oriented tool k Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micccc Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: An object-oriented tool kit for C programmers has been released by Complete Computer Corp. Called Complete C, the software package is said to include a driver, translator, foundation classes, logical debugger, product module, application streamliner and documentation generator. The program runs on MS-DOS machines and is priced at $269, which includes reference manuals and technical support. Educational discounts and site licenses are available, the vendor said. Complete Computer 111 West 57th St. New York, N.Y. 10019 212-582-2635 <<<>>> Title : Ajida Technologies, Inc. Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micajida Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Ajida Technologies, Inc. has announced Version 2.0 of Plotview, a utility program developed for viewing, printing, cutting and pasting Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Graphics Language format plot files. The program comes in two versions: one for those already running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, priced at $79; and another for those without Windows, priced at $99. The product is scheduled for delivery this month and will be offered in both 5 -in. and 3 -in. disk formats, the vendor said. Ajida Technologies 613 Fourth St. Santa Rosa, Calif. 95404 707-545-7777 <<<>>> Title : A menu-driven template pr Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: mickital Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A menu-driven template program designed for spreadsheet users has been announced by K.I.T.A.L. Software in Karmiel, Israel. Menu-range was reportedly developed for Lotus Development Corp.'s 1-2-3 and Borland International's Quattro users. The program allows any rectangular range of cells in the spreadsheet to be utilized as an active menu-range, according to the vendor. The software program runs on IBM Personal Computers, Personal System/2s and compatible machines and is available for $50. K.I.T.A.L. Software 17/1 Arbel St. Karmiel, Israel 20100 972-4-987255 <<<>>> Title : A software program was sp Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micinter Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A software program was specifically designed to meet the mandatory Internal Revenue Service requirements for reporting all 1099 and W-2 forms has been announced by Internal Reporting Systems, Inc. The Magnetic Media Reporter imports information from three types of files for storage on magnetic media: Ashton-Tate Corp.'s Dbase III and IV, ASCII export files and ASCII printed files, according to Reporting Systems. The package carries a price tag of $195. Internal Reporting Systems Suite 406 39120 Argonaut Way Fremont, Calif. 94538 800-235-6646 <<<>>> Title : A paper feeder that will Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micati Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A paper feeder that will reportedly provide 1,000 sheets of capacity to laser printers has been announced by Advanced Technologies International, Inc. The SF family of sheet feeders are operator-installable and will operate with ATI Models 0880 and 1570, as well as Ricoh Corp. 8 and 15 page/min printers and Canon U.S.A., Inc.-based laser printers, the vendor said. The units come in versions for both domestic and international output devices and cost $795 each. ATI 355 Sinclair-Frontage Road Milpitas, Calif. 95035 408-942-1780 <<<>>> Title : A 14-in. multifrequency m Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micpanas Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A 14-in. multifrequency monochrome monitor that supports most popular graphics applications has been introduced by Panasonic Industrial Co. The Panasync C1391 reportedly offers a horizontal resolution of 800 lines and a vertical resolution of of 600 lines, with a 0.31mm dot pitch. A three-way color switch is incorporated into the device that changes text color to green, amber or paper white in transistor-transistor logic mode, the vendor said. The Panasync monitor is scheduled for first-quarter delivery and is priced at $949. Panasonic 2 Panasonic Way Secaucus, N.J. 07094 201-348-7000 <<<>>> Title : Hewlett-Packard Co. has i Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: michewle Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Hewlett-Packard Co. has introduced the HP IGC, an intelligent graphics controller, and a set of large-screen color displays. The products are targeted at IBM Personal Computer AT and compatible users wanting to take advantage of computer-aided design technology, according to the company. The intelligent graphics controller supports resolutions up to 1,024 by 768 pixels and can display 16 colors from a palette of 4,096. It is priced at $1,400. Three displays are available to complement the controller: the EGA Emulation Module, priced at $395; the 20-in. Color Display, priced at $3,695; and the 16-in. Color Display, which costs $2,795. HP 3000 Hanover St. Palo Alto, Calif. 94304 800-752-0900 <<<>>> Title : Xerox Corp. has announced Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micxerox Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Xerox Corp. has announced a high-resolution, large-screen monitor and adapter card, both designed to enhance the use of desktop graphics applications on IBM Personal Computers and compatibles. The Panorama is reportedly a 19-in. monochrome monitor capable of displaying two full pages in a side-by-side format and is compatible with several applications, including Autodesk, Inc.'s Autocad and Lotus Development Corp.'s 1-2-3 and Symphony spreadsheet packages. The Panorama monitor and Xerox Graphics Adapter card cost $1,995. Xerox Xerox Square 06B Rochester, N.Y. 14644 800-832-6979 <<<>>> Title : Aedex Corp. has introduce Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micaedex Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Aedex Corp. has introduced the Jetpak Plus Barcode Commander Intelligent Cartridge, a dedicated bar-code label-generation system for use with laser printers. The product plugs into the cartridge slot of either Hewlett-Packard Co. Laserjet Series II or Canon U.S.A., Inc. A1/A2 series laser printers. It automatically builds bar code and produces user-definable lines and borders with variable size text and graphics, the vendor said. The system is priced at $995, which includes the cartridge, a forms-generation software package and a mouse. Aedex 1070 Ortega Way Placentia, Calif. 92670 714-632-7000 <<<>>> Title : Kennect Technology has in Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: mickenne Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Kennect Technology has introduced two products for Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh 512E, Plus and SE computers. Rapport is a companion microprocessor and drive controller that plugs into the external drive port of a Macintosh. It allows users to read MS-DOS files from 720K byte, 3 -in. disks while utilizing existing internal drives, the vendor said. Rapport is priced at $295. The firm also announced Drive 2.4, an external drive that allows Macintosh users to read, write and format to all current IBM and Apple 3 -in. standards, including the Macintosh IIX and the IBM Personal System/2. The device costs $495. Kennect Technology 271 E. Hacienda Ave. Campbell, Calif. 95008 800-552-1232 <<<>>> Title : Host-PBX links lack softw Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: citfight Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: As Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) matures from a concept to a commercially available technology, more companies are turning to voice/data applications that harness hosts' computing power to the communications system. But with no standardized computer-to-private branch exchange software interface available, companies that want multivendor connections end up doing the job themselves. American Transtech is one such company. The Jacksonville, Fla., financial services bureau, which is wholly owned by AT&T, has been using its parent's ISDN Primary Rate Interface service to give its telemarketing people a competitive edge. When a call comes in, an AT&T PBX picks up the caller's identification number from the service and uses it to access the customer's account data on an AT&T 3B host, which is running AT&T's Edge telemarketing software package, and display it on the agent's screen. But Transtech wants to extend the application beyond AT&T hosts to other platforms, which requires programmers to write a separate interface for each additional software environment. ``We have an ISDN core group whose primary function is to establish interfaces [between AT&T PBXs and] software systems such as CICS, DB2, IMS and Oracle,'' said Todd Stevenson, a Transtech telecommunications manager. The answer to this problem is a standardized programming interface that will allow applications such as Edge to be ported among a variety of PBXs and computer software environments. Stops along the way A subcommittee of the European Computer Manufacturing Association (ECMA) is just beginning to hammer out such a standard, but usable protocols are apparently some years off. Meanwhile, AT&T, Digital Equipment Corp. and Northern Telecom, Inc. are pushing their own protocols as de facto standards and as a possible basis for the official standard. AT&T's offering is the Ad- junct/Switch Application Interface (ASAI), which defines a consistent set of formats for generating and sending messages back and forth between a computer and a PBX or another type of communications device such as a multiplexer, according to Frank Young, AT&T division manger of ISDN planning. The protocol works with the standard, and its formats are consistent with ISDN signaling protocols, Young said. AT&T should finalize the specification by the third quarter and make it generally available shortly afterward, he said. ASAI was developed under the aegis of AT&T's ISDN DMI User Group. The group's approximately 160 members all support a lower level PBX-to-computer interface that AT&T introduced some years ago. But members of the group _ in particular, major computer vendors such as DEC and AT&T that are rivals in the PBX arena _ have not announced ASAI support. For example Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. is a member of the group, but a company spokesman said that the T1 switch vendor would not support de facto industry standards such as ASAI unless they become official. Competition The protocol has at least one rival for official standard status: Computer Integrated Telephony (CIT) protocols from Northern Telecom and DEC. The vendors announced an alliance to jointly develop a de facto industry standard, as well as to integrate DEC hosts and Northern Telecom PBXs, at Telecom '87 in Geneva. The duo are expected to release the first official version of their protocol in the next few weeks along with some software products to link their wares to other vendors' offerings. They, too, have submitted their entry to the ECMA. Members of the ECMA subcommittee should have no trouble reaching a compromise from among different vendors' suggestions, AT&T's Young said. But Peter Bernstein, a consultant at Probe Research, Inc. in Morristown, N.J., tells a different story _ one of disagreement among computer and PBX factions over whose device will have the upper hand in the exchange. ``There is an awful lot of vendor politics involved in whether the PBX-to-computer relationship will be peer-to-peer or slave-to-host, because [both PBX and computer vendors] make money by having people predominantly use their software,'' Bernstein said. While the official standard is on hold, PBX vendors are coming up with their own links to the host environment _ and vice versa. AT&T is working on software to link its PBXs to a variety of host software environments, according to Transtech's Stevenson. The software will probably be based on ASAI _ but is likely to include proprietary elements. Meanwhile, Northern Telecom is working on ``the ultimate interface'' that would provide links between the vendor's PBXs and a variety of computer systems, according to Richard Clements, a telecommunications manager at Provo, Utah, telemarketing firm Nice Corp. This will be helpful to Nice, which wants to develop ISDN-based telemarketing applications over links between Northern Telecom's PBXs and Tandem Computers, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. hosts. DEC, for its own part, is not staying exactly faithful to Northern Telecom's switches. The company has also forged similar alliances with European switch vendors _ including British Telecom International, Ericcson Information Systems, Siemens AG and Mitel Corp. _ that have already announced products or plans to implement the protocol. DEC clearly does not countenance ISDN as a way for the PBX to become the dominant voice/ data switch at the expense of other networking devices, according to Lee Sudan, DEC director of enterprise networks. PBX links are only one part of DEC's CIT offering, Sudan said. The other component is an application programming interface that is specific to DEC systems and ``not really dependent on lower [networking] layers.'' ISDN is best used to integrate voice and data over wide-area network services and on the same wire, he said, adding that Ethernet and LAN technologies are the best ways of doing data networking. Central office switches DEC is also integrating its hosts with carriers' central office switches to support intelligent networking applications on the service side that will compete with host/PBX applications on the customer premises side. IBM, Data General Corp. and other major computer vendors are also targeting this market. IBM is taking an uncharacteristically low-profile role in this particular front of the standards war. Vice-President Ellen Hancock made it clear at the recent Communication Networks '89 conference in Washington, D.C., that the vendor intends to play a major role in computer-to-PBX integration through its new alliance with Siemens. But while Hancock said IBM ``made a contribution to ECMA on how hosts should talk to switches,'' another IBM spokesman said the vendor is proposing no interface of its own as a standard. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Joint effort to smooth fi Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netgen4 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. _ Network General Corp. and Network Computing Devices, Inc. (NCD) agreed recently to jointly develop and market X Window System technology to facilitate file exchange between computers made by different manufacturers. ``NCD is building high-performance graphics workstations that speak the X Window language and draw images on the screen,'' said Harry J. Saal, president of Network General, which is headquartered here. ``Our products provide complete analysis tools for every level of the ISO stack _ from the transport level to the applications level.'' Together, the two companies can offer a system that gives software houses and corporate end users the ability to ``map'' one type of screen format to another. This would mean that applications written for one type of computer system could be easily ported for use on another. NCD's graphics terminal, which draws on the intelligence of a network server, is compatible with Unix and Digital Equipment Corp.'s VMS operating systems. Network General's line of Sniffer network analysis tools will allow X Window users to monitor a network and analyze the data packets riding on that network. ``The Sniffer tools can help an engineer tune the network computing system for higher performance by determining where bottlenecks are likely to occur,'' said NCD Executive Vice-President Judy Estrin. ``They can also be used by software developers to write X Window applications to minimize network traffic.'' The primary users would be vendors as well as software developers who are building X Window applications, Saal conceded. But the same technology, he said, could help programmers in large corporations make applications available across a wide spectrum of computer platforms. The X Window System is a standard first developed by MIT researchers under the auspices of Project Athena in the mid-1980s. Project Athena, which was sponsored by IBM, DEC and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was an effort to discover ways to interconnect computer systems on a network. By Jean S. Bozman, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Third parties show off ne Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netwhirl Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: BOSTON _ Last week's Networld East '89 show, which focused on Novell, Inc.'s Netware network software and compatible products, was the scene of numerous third-party announcements, including high-power network interfaces and gateways for Netware networks. Spectrum Concepts, Inc. in New York announced Version 1.5 of its LU6.2-based IBM Personal Computer file transfer package, Xcom 6.2/PC. The enhanced software is said to be easier to use, requires less memory and sends large batches of files automatically. A background operation feature reportedly allows users to continue working on a PC application while Xcom 6.2/PC automates file transfer. The product reportedly supports IBM mainframe VTAM environments, Netbios-compatible local-area networks and a variety of LU6.2-based LAN gateways, including Novell's Netware 6.2 gateway. The package is priced at $495, the company said. BICC Data Networks, Inc. in Westboro, Mass., introduced Ethernet controller cards for IBM's PC AT and Personal System/2 that are said to use 16-bit Bus Master technology to provide the throughput necessary to match the higher transmission demands of IBM's high-speed Micro Channel Architecture bus and multitasking systems. The Netware-compatible controllers reportedly provide single-station throughput of 4.2M and 8.5M bit/sec. for server throughput. BICC's Isolan Multiprotocol Support software enables the controllers to support a variety of networking protocols, including Netware, Microsoft Corp. Networks, Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Open Systems Interconnect Transport Layer protocol, Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s PC/Network File System and Netbios protocols, the vendor said. The Model 4110-2 PC AT controller is priced at $495; the Model 4110-3 MCA controller costs $595. Automated Design Systems, Inc. in Atlanta unwrapped Windows Workstation Print, a new member of its Windows Workstation software family. The product is said to allow users to access printer functions over a LAN from a Microsoft Windows interface. Users can access either locally attached or shared LAN printers. Print jobs can be viewed and put into priority order by job number or user identification, the vendor said. The initial software release supports Netware, with future releases slated to support 3Com Corp.'s 3+Open, Ungermann-Bass, Inc.'s Net/One, Banyan Systems, Inc.'s Virtual Network System and IBM's OS/2 LAN Server, according to the vendor. Slated for release this month, Windows Workstation Print is priced at $695 for an unlimited-use, single-file-server license. Palo Alto, Calif.-based CC:Mail, Inc. previewed CC:Mail Faxlink, a software gateway that allows PC and Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh CC:Mail users to send, receive and view both text- and graphics-oriented facsimile messages through a LAN workstation equipped with an Intel Corp. Connection Coprocessor board. Faxes can be created like ordinary CC:Mail messages and addressed to users on multiple LANs and fax locations, including those running MS-DOS and OS/2, as well as Macintoshes equipped with internal fax boards, CC:Mail said. The product is priced at $995 per LAN, and delivery is scheduled for June. Outside of Networld, another computer-to-fax link was introduced by GE Information Services. GEIS announced that its Quik-Comm electronic mail service can now send messages to fax machines throughout the world. As a result, users on IBM Professional Office System, Distributed Office Support System, Digital Equipment Corp.'s All-In-1 and Wang Laboratories, Inc. Office will be able to send messages to users who are not on those systems but who have fax machines, GE said. Receiving fax machines must be Group III facsimile terminals that conform to CCITT standards. Pricing for Quik-Comm to fax is distance-sensitive. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Fibercom offers FDDI-base Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: fibercom Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: ROANOKE, Va. _ Fibercom, Inc. has become the latest in a succession of vendors to announce channel-based host networking products that will be based on the Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) standard. Once an esoteric market dominated by IBM and a few specialized players, the high-speed channel-based host networking arena has lately enjoyed entries from a variety of players, including Fibercom archrival Fibronics International, Inc. Fibercom and Integrated Networks Corp. both announced FDDI-compatible channel-based IBM host networking products at the recent Communication Networks '89 conference. Fibercom's Optichannel 7000 series of fiber-optic channel extenders can link two hosts or a host and a high-speed peripheral across distances of to 6.2 miles, while many existing products cannot extend much further than a mile, Fibercom said. The modularly upgradable series starts at $18,000 for an entry-level system that supports data transmission speeds of 750K byte/sec. and distances of 2 km. The high end of the family, priced at $45,000, supports 3M byte/sec. across the 6.2-mile distance. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Feds choose Apollo for FD Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: bitpacts Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Apollo Computer, Inc. has been awarded a single-source development contract by the federal government to deliver an implementation of the ANSI standard Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI). Apollo will build a network that uses its Series 10000 Personal Supercomputer and Station Management Software. It will also oversee a heterogeneous implementation of FDDI and certify another yet-to-be-determined vendor's execution of the standard. Information Builders, Inc. and Interlink Computer Sciences, Inc. have announced a marketing agreement to facilitate integration of their product lines. With help from Interlink, Information Builders has developed the Focnet/Interlink Interface, which reportedly enables its Focus software to use an Interlink gateway to connect Information Builders' VAX and IBM database products over Digital Equipment Corp.'s Decnet. The interface is said to provide file transfer speed of 1M bit/sec. and support 256 simultaneous users. AT&T was selected by Italian telecommunications equipment manufacturer Italtel as its prospective partner in the development and marketing of public and private telecommunications equipment worldwide. The alliance should further AT&T's plans for expansion in the overseas telecommunications equipment market, AT&T Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert E. Allen indicated. Unisys Corp. recently joined about 30 other computer manufacturers and systems integrators that provide links to DEC's Decnet via Community software from Technology Concepts, Inc. Under an OEM deal with the Bell Atlantic Corp. subsidiary, Unisys said it will sell DEC Network Interconnect software for its U series of Unix-based minicomputers. International Technegroup, Inc. has agreed to provide computer-aided design (CAD) translation and consulting services to users of GE Information Services' Design Express service. The service, which the General Electric Co. subsidiary recently added to its familiy of electronic data interchange services, is said to allow users to exchange CAD documents electronically. Globenet, Inc., an interchange carrier and public data network, has signed an agreement with International Trade, Inc. to provide worldwide data communications service to users of International Trade's on-line service. <<<>>> Title : Hyundai Electronics has i Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: nethyund Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Hyundai Electronics has introduced an IBM Personal Computer AT-based local-area network workstation. The 286 Workstation is reportedly based on the Super-286c processor and includes an NE-1000 network interface card. The unit can be configured with Hyundai's LAN PAC products and is priced at $1,645. Hyundai 166 Baypointe Pkwy. San Jose, Calif. 95134 408-473-9200 <<<>>> Title : Interlan, Inc. has announ Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netinter Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Interlan, Inc. has announced a personal computer workstation controller designed to support concurrent access to Digital Equipment Corp.'s Decnet and Novell, Inc.'s Netware networks. The firm introduced two versions of the NP647 protocol processor that permit MS-DOS or PC-DOS workstations to simultaneously communicate with DEC hosts using Decnet protocols as well as Netware file servers using Netware protocols. Each unit has 512K bytes of random-access memory and an Intel Corp. 80186 processor. Both versions of the NP647 cost $1,395. Interlan 155 Swanson Road Boxboro, Mass. 01719 508-263-9929 <<<>>> Title : Azure Technologies, Inc. Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netazure Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Azure Technologies, Inc. has expanded its line of protocol analyzer products with the addition of the Coaxcontroller. Reportedly, the IBM Personal Computer-based product provides IBM 3270 control-unit emulation and can reproduce complex sequences of up to 16M bytes that were recorded by the Azure Coaxscope. A full-screen editor and debugging capabilities are included. It costs $2,995. Azure Technologies 38 Pond St. Franklin, Mass. 02038 508-520-3800 <<<>>> Title : BBN Communications Corp. Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netbbn Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: BBN Communications Corp. has introduced a network management software tool that offers remote datascope capabilities for network operations and support-staff personnel. Called Netscope, the product was designed to monitor CCITT X.25 packet switching node host ports on a BBN private packet network, the company said. It reportedly can be used at either a central debugging site or at a remote Help desk. Scheduled for delivery in the second quarter, the software will be licensed for $20,000. BBN Communications 150 Cambridge Park Drive Cambridge, Mass. 02140 617-873-2683 <<<>>> Title : Telematics International, Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: telemati Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Telematics International, Inc. has announced a network system for the Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS computer environment. According to the company, the Transaction Accelerator will allow a VAX computer to support as many as 30% more users and will reduce network costs by cutting traffic by as much as 80%. The product consists of an Ethernet-attached front-end processor and remote VT cluster controllers. VMS Version 4.6 or higher is required for operation. Scheduled for delivery in the second quarter, the Transaction Accelerator will be priced from $45,000. Telematics 1201 Cypress Creek Road Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. 33309 305-772-3070 <<<>>> Title : Satellite network vendor Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: cylix Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Satellite network vendor Cylix Communications Corp. is offering disaster recovery services to customers on a subscription basis. Customers can connect their disaster recovery centers to Cylix's central hub as a backup facility for failures either on their own network or on a local carrier's network. An on-call service is said to provide restoral of Cylix-based network links within 48 hours after notification. A dedicated backup service is said to restore operations within minutes after an outage. Pricing varies depending on service required. Cylix 800 Ridge Lake Blvd. Memphis, Tenn. 38119 800-821-5295 <<<>>> Title : Electro Standards Laborat Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: neteslin Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Electro Standards Laboratory, Inc. has expanded its line of data communications equipment to include the Model 8863-D, a minicomputer-to-printer parallel-interface three-way transfer switch. The product is used in minicomputer word-processing applications and multiple microcomputer installations. The transfer switch is data-speed- and code-transparent, according to the company. The Model 8863-D costs $220. Electro Standards P.O. Box 9144 Providence, R.I. 02940 401-943-1164 <<<>>> Title : Fujitsu America, Inc.'s I Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netfujit Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Fujitsu America, Inc.'s ISDN Systems Division has unveiled an Integrated Services Digital Network terminal adapter. Designated the SRS-300, the product reportedly offers full ISDN dual-port capability and provides access to B channel circuit-switched network service through two RS-232C ports. In addition to circuit-switched transmission, the unit enables packet-switched communications through the D channel. The SRS-300 costs $363 per port. Fujitsu 3055 Orchard Drive San Jose, Calif. 95134 408-432-1300 <<<>>> Title : A software developed to t Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micwhite Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A software developed to translate information from mainframe and minicomputer reports directly into microcomputer applications has been announced by White Crane Systems, Inc. Called Autoimport, the product reportedly requires no reformatting for translating files directly into the personal computer applications. These include Lotus Development Corp.'s 1-2-3, Ashton-Tate Corp.'s Dbase III Plus and Dbase IV and Borland International's Quattro. The program uses any ASCII text files downloaded to disk by a host-to-PC file transfer program or network connection and is priced at $170. White Crane Systems Suite 151 6889 Peachtree Industrial Blvd. Norcross, Ga. 30092 404-394-3119 <<<>>> Title : A pop-up program that spo Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netwalke Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A pop-up program that spools IBM Personal Computer printer output to a disk and allows users to access line and laser printers connected to a Digital Equipment Corp. VAX system has been announced by Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc. Called RSVP, the product consists of an RSVP-PC and an RSVP link. The program requires DOS 2.1 or higher and a hard disk. It costs $500 for the host computer portion and $79 for each PC unit. Walker Richer & Quinn 2825 Eastlake Ave. E. Seattle, Wash. 98102 206-324-0350 <<<>>> Title : Quadram Corp. has release Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netquadr Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Quadram Corp. has released Version 1.1 of its program development tool kit for its JT Fax 9600 PC facsimile board. The product reportedly contains instructions that let programmers write to the JT Fax's shared random-access memory interface as well as work programs for all operations supported by the board. The tool kit is available free to all registered JT Fax 9600 users. The JT Fax background board installs in IBM Personal Computer, PC XT and AT, Personal System/2 Models 25 and 30 and most compatible systems. It is priced at $795. Quadram One Quad Way Norcross, Ga. 30093 404-923-6666 <<<>>> Title : A printer-sharing device Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netdatac Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A printer-sharing device that connects up to 16 computers to one printer and allows users to prioritize them by order of connection has been announced by Datacom Technologies, Inc. The Model 413 is compatible with most dot matrix printers, laser printers and plotters, and plug-in expansion modules may be added as needed. It is priced at $324. Datacom 11001 31st Place W. Everett, Wash. 98204 206-355-0590 <<<>>> Title : Targa Technologies, Inc. Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: nettarga Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Targa Technologies, Inc. has introduced a software product designed to extend Ashton-Tate Corp.'s Dbase language, giving Dbase applications the ability to read and write on-line IBM 3270 mainframe data, the company said. Called Targapower, the software requires a Digital Communications Associates, Inc. Irma, IBM or compatible emulation board and a Dbase or compatible application to exchange data with existing 3270 applications. It costs $495. Targa Suite 502 5655 Lindero Canyon Road Westlake Village, Calif. 91362 818-889-1968 <<<>>> Title : A gateway that reportedly Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netzenit Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A gateway that reportedly allows access to any resource in a broadband local-area network has been announced by Zenith Electronics Corp. The Z-LAN 500 GW was designed to work with Zenith's broadband network of personal computer software and can be used with any IBM Netbios-compatible network adapter card, the vendor said. The product reportedly permits Ethernet and Token-Ring networks to access multiple mainframes on the Z-LAN broadband network. The Z-LAN 500 GW can be used on any DOS-based IBM Personal Computer or compatible and is priced at $1,995. Zenith 1000 Milwaukee Ave. Glenview, Ill. 60025 312-391-8181 <<<>>> Title : Harris Corp.'s Data Commu Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netharri Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Harris Corp.'s Data Communications Division has announced a combination hardware and software product for wide- and local-area networking. According to the vendor, the Supernet Super Channel is an intelligent gateway that will provide high-speed bidirectional access between IBM Systems Network Architecture networks and multi-vendor Ethernet networks. Pricing ranges from $40,000 to $60,000, depending on configuration and options. Harris 16001 Dallas Pkwy. Dallas, Texas 75248 214-386-2000 <<<>>> Title : Dataprobe, Inc. has annou Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netdatap Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Dataprobe, Inc. has announced an RS-232/V.35 interface converter. The Model DR-7 allows direct interconnection of V.35 and RS-232 equipment and utilizes active line drivers to regenerate control and data signals, the vendor said. The product is priced at $365. Also available is the Model K-DR7 automatic A/B switch, designed to facilitate automatic switching of V.35 circuits to RS-232 backup communications devices. The unit is packaged in a desktop enclosure that measures 8-in. wide by 6.5-in. deep and 3-in. high. The Model K-DR7 costs $565. Dataprobe 170 Coolidge Ave. Englewood, N.J. 07631 201-569-6464 <<<>>> Title : Xyplex, Inc. has announce Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netxyple Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Xyplex, Inc. has announced full local-area transport (LAT) compatibility for its Maxserver line. Called Xyplex LAT, the product works in conjunction with the company's Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) support package and gives any user connected to a Maxserver terminal access to LAT and TCP/IP resources on the network, the vendor said. The Xyplex LAT/TCP eight-port terminal server card for the Maxserver costs $1,495. The LAT software costs $495. Xyplex 100 Domino Drive Concord, Mass. 01742 508-371-1400 <<<>>> Title : Secure Telecom, Inc. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netsecur Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Secure Telecom, Inc. has introduced the Multi-Function Encryptor (MFE), an encryption device with modem and remote-control capabilities. The product was designed to encrypt data transmissions between two directly connected computers and prevent the spread of computer viruses, according to the company. The device also reportedly encrypts data transmitted through telephones or modems to protect against wiretapping. The MFE includes multiplexer and multidrop capabilities and is priced at $695. Secure Telecom P.O. Box 70337 Sunnyvale, Calif. 94086 408-992-0572 <<<>>> Title : Wang Laboratories, Inc. h Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netwangl Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Wang Laboratories, Inc. has enhanced a gateway that reportedly allows users of Wang's Office to access IBM's Distributed Office Support System (Disoss). The Wang Office/Disoss Gateway Release 3.0 provides support for the Wang VS SNADS (for IBM's Systems Network Architecture Distribution Services), an application-control protocol that allows store-and-forward distribution between Disoss and Wang Office. The company said the gateway also enables personal computer users in both Wang and IBM environments to exchange DOS files. Scheduled for delivery in the second quarter, Release 3.0 will carry license fees ranging from $4,200 to $16,800, depending on configuration. Wang 1 Industrial Ave. Lowell, Mass. 01851 508-459-5000 <<<>>> Title : Castle Rock Computing, In Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netcastl Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Castle Rock Computing, Inc. has announced the ES200 802.3 network bridge. The product supports the IEEE 802.1 spanning-tree algorithm, which permits multiple ES200 bridges to be used as backups in case of network failure, the company said. The bridge has provision for one expansion board as well as other network attachments and is priced at $2,750. Castle Rock Suite 118 2841 Junction Ave. San Jose, Calif. 95134 408-434-6608 <<<>>> Title : Perle Systems, Inc. has a Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netperle Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Perle Systems, Inc. has announced that users of its 8294 controllers will be able to upgrade their software to match the capabilities of IBM's 5394 remote controller for its Application System/400. The upgrade will be supplied in three phases at a one-time cost of $595, the vendor said. Perle Systems 1980 Springer Drive Lombard, Ill. 60148 312-932-4171 <<<>>> Title : A T1 communications contr Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netdilog Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A T1 communications controller designed to link terminal clusters to Digital Equipment Corp. Q-bus systems has been unveiled by Dilog Distributed Logic Corp. Designated the CQ2010, the quad-height module occupies one slot in a DEC Microvax or PDP-11 backplane, the vendor said. It reportedly connects up to 128 asynchronous terminals by multiplexing them into a single T1 composite line. The product is priced at $3,900, and quantity discounts are available. Dilog 1555 S. Sinclair St. Anaheim, Calif. 92806 714-937-5700 <<<>>> Title : Mitek Systems Corp. has a Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netmitek Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Mitek Systems Corp. has announced an addition to its Openconnect line. The Openconnect Server Model M2030-256 reportedly provides bidirectional communication between IBM hosts and non-IBM systems, including those from Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems, Inc., Apollo Computer, Inc. and AT&T. The server supports 256 sessions and is priced at $39,500. Mitek Systems 2033 Chennault Drive Carrollton, Texas 75006 214-490-4090 <<<>>> Title : Migrating its proprietary Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: dgosi Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Migrating its proprietary Xodiac network architecture to the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) standard, Data General Corp. has unveiled an implementation of the OSI FTAM protocol, dubbed DG/FTAM, and Applications Platform Interface, a tool kit for users and resellers to develop OSI applications. DG/ FTAM is scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter. Pricing ranges from $1,500 to $17,500, depending on the DG Eclipse computer platform. DG/OAPI is also scheduled for fourth-quarter release, starting at $2,500. Data General 3400 Computer Drive Westboro, Mass. 01580 508-898-4051 <<<>>> Title : Digital Communications As Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netdca Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Digital Communications Associates, Inc. (DCA) has announced a product that permits 10net local-area network users to communicate with a variety of equipment through the Transmission Control Protocol/Interconnect Protocol (TCP/IP) to other TCP/IP-based computing programs. 10net TCP is designed to integrate mini and mainframe computer environments offered by IBM, Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and other vendors. The package includes software modules and utilities for TCP/IP protocols and is scheduled for delivery this spring. It is priced at $395, and multiple site licenses are available. DCA 1000 Alderman Drive Alpharetta, Ga. 30201 404-442-4000 <<<>>> Title : Heritage Communication Sy Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netherit Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Heritage Communication Systems, Inc. has announced a terminal emulator that was designed to enable IBM Personal Computers, Personal System/2s or compatibles to access Digital Equipment Corp. VAX computers. Called Emma, the combination hardware and software product consists of VT220, VT320, VT100 and VT52 emulation software and a printed circuit board with two RS-232 ports, the vendor said. The board handles host- and PC-processing simultaneously and is priced at $229. Heritage 13416 N. 32nd St. Phoenix, Ariz. 85032 602-992-1245 <<<>>> Title : Poc-it Management Service Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netpocit Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Poc-it Management Services, Inc. has introduced the Microman II Mainframe Bridge, which was designed to connect IBM mainframe terminals with selected functions of the Poc-it Microman II personal computer-based project management system. According to the vendor, the bridge allows users to input information on the progress of their projects at their terminals rather than from a PC. The product is available for both IBM MVS and VM environments and is priced at $1,000. Poc-it Management Suite 512 606 Wilshire Blvd. Santa Monica, Calif. 90401 213-393-4552 <<<>>> Title : QMS, Inc. has announced t Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwqmsinc Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: QMS, Inc. has announced the addition of a Colorgrafix Plus option for users of the company's Colorgrafix 100 printer. The option reportedly allows direct connection of the printer to any Ethernet Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol-compatible network. The unit can be configured to run in Digital Equipment Corp., Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Apollo Computer, Inc. environments and costs $4,995. QMS 1 Magnum Pass Mobile, Ala. 36618 205-633-4300 <<<>>> Title : Control Data Corp. has an Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netcontr Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Control Data Corp. has announced its Ascent Plus DNI (for Digital Equipment Corp. Decnet interface) software, which is designed to provide users of Pyramid Technology Corp. computer systems with access to Decnet software. The product reportedly provides Ethernet-based Decnet end-node capabilities, including bidirectional remote file access and transfer. It also includes task-to-task communications, virtual terminal networking and network management functions, the vendor said. Ascent Plus DNI will be sold under a marketing agreement with Technology Concepts, Inc., a Bell Atlantic company. The product is priced from $10,000 to $25,000, depending on the size of the Pyramid system. Control Data Integrated Information Services 4234 Hacienda Drive Pleasanton, Calif. 94566 415-463-6800 <<<>>> Title : Network Software Associat Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netnsa Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Network Software Associates, Inc. has announced a mainframe gateway for IBM personal computers and compatibles connected to IBM's Token-Ring local-area network or any other IBM Netbios-compatible LAN. The Adapt SNA LAN Gateway reportedly supports all major IBM Systems Network Architecture protocols, including interactive IBM 3270, cooperative LU6.2/IBM Advanced Program-to-Program Communications and batch. A typical configuraton supporting eight concurrent PCs is priced from approximately $2,000. Network Software 22982 Mill Creek Laguna Hills, Calif. 92653 714-768-4013 <<<>>> Title : A local-area network gate Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netsoftw Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A local-area network gateway with High-Level Language Application Program Interface for OS/2 is now available from Software Dynamics, Inc. Called the SDI3274 LAN Gateway for OS/2, the product reportedly emulates the functions of an IBM 3274 Systems Network Architecture/Synchronous Data Link Control communications controller. It runs on IBM Personal Computer AT-class and Personal System/2 Micro Channel machines. Pricing ranges from $750 to $3,210, based on configuration. Software Dynamics P.O. Box 247 Dunedin, Fla. 34697 813-733-8784 <<<>>> Title : KMW Systems Corp. has enh Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netkmwsy Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: KMW Systems Corp. has enhanced its twin-axial protocol converters to support IBM Application System/400 communications. The Series II and Series III converters enable an Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh, IBM Personal Computer or compatible to emulate an IBM 5251 or 5291 terminal when connected to an AS/400, according to the company. The price for the multiport Series II Twinax with 5250 software ranges from $1,495 to $3,595. The single port Series III Twinax with software is $1,195. KMW 6034 W. Courtyard Drive Austin, Texas 78703 512-338-3000 <<<>>> Title : H&W Computer Systems, Inc Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: nethandw Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: H&W Computer Systems, Inc. has released Version 6.2 of Sysm, an IBM CICS-based electronic mail system. The product has been enhanced to provide word-wrapping techniques; a spelling checker and dictionary; and calendar and scheduling capabilities, the vendor said. Other features include alternate user support, bulletin boards and user statistics. Sysm 6.2 is priced at $19,000 and $10,995 and runs under IBM VMS or DOS with CICS. A free-trial program is available. H&W Computer P.O. Box 15190 Boise, Idaho 83715 208-385-0336 <<<>>> Title : Computer Associates Inter Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netcompu Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Computer Associates International, Inc. has introduced a version of its CA-PC Email File Transfer package. According to the vendor, the electronic mail program permits mainframe and personal computer users to access documents created by popular word-processing packages and distributes them throughout an organization. Release 1.2 is said to support the conversion of Wordperfect Corp.'s Wordperfect, Micropro International Corp.'s Wordstar, IBM's Displaywrite and other packages from native format to CA-PC E-mail format. The product costs $195 and runs under IBM CICS in MVS or VSE environments, MVS/TSO in MVS environments or VM/CMS. CA 711 Stewart Ave. Garden City, N.Y. 11530 516-227-3300 <<<>>> Title : Network Software Associat Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: networks Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Network Software Associates, Inc. (NSA) has unveiled a multifunction V.32 communications board. The Adaptmodem V.32 reportedly combines a full-duplex synchronous modem, an asynchronous modem and a multiprotocol Synchronous Data Link Control adapter on a single plug-in board. The device supports communications speeds up to 9.6K bit/ sec. and was designed specifically for IBM Systems Network Architecture communications, according to the company. The Adaptmodem V.32 costs $1,295. NSA 22982 Mill Creek Laguna Hills, Calif. 92653 714-768-4013 <<<>>> Title : Gandalf Data, Inc. has in Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netganda Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Gandalf Data, Inc. has introduced a 19.2K bit/sec. full-duplex leased-line modem. The LDM 192 reportedly operates over unconditioned four-wire 3002-type leased lines and was designed for distances of up to 200 miles. It handles point-to-point asynchronous and synchronous applications and costs $2,695. Gandalf 1020 S. Noel Ave. Wheeling, Ill. 60090 312-459-9348 <<<>>> Title : Executive track Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 36track Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Norman S. Himes, a 25-year MIS veteran of the banking industry, has joined American Management Systems, Inc. (AMS). As vice-president and director of technology consulting services, Himes, 45, will be responsible for AMS' advice to financial services clients on new technologies. He will be based in AMS' regional office in Winter Park, Fla. Himes was most recently senior operating officer at Citicorp Savings of Florida. Before that, he was chairman and chief executive officer of Sun Bank Services Corp. _ now Sun Trust Services Corp. _ the consolidated MIS operations resulting from the merger of Sun Bank and Flagship Bank. Himes was president and CEO of Flagship Services prior to the merger. Richard T.C. LeFave has been appointed senior vice-president and division manager of data processing operations and technical services at the The Boston Co., a Boston-based personal and institutional investment banking services firm. He is responsible for managing the organization's data centers, all software systems support and international telecommunications. LeFave was formerly the company's data center manager; previous positions included director of technology planning at Baybanks, Inc., MIS director of Nixdorf Computer Corp. in the U.S. and management consultant at Boeing Computer Services. Donald Daniel has been elected senior vice-president of MIS at Rapp and Collins USA/Dallas, a direct marketing subsidiary of Omnicom, Inc. Daniel joined Rapp and Collins in 1987 after 12 years in data processing-related positions with other Omnicom companies. <<<>>> Title : PCs and perestroika in AM Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: russians Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: The closest translation of the word ``management'' in the Soviet Union is upravlania, which means ``to steer.'' Yet later this month, a select group of Soviet management students will learn the basics of the personal computer as a business tool _ from an American Management Association (AMA) trainer. After two years of negotiations, the AMA will send senior program manager Susan Raskin to Moscow to teach approximately 100 students the fundamentals of random-access memory, spreadsheets, databases, word processing and graphics. In a three-day workshop, Raskin will also convey a sense of the PC as a management tool. ``You are the manager of your PC, no matter what your title is,'' she said. ``You have to understand issues like productivity, self-training, security, maintenance and how to seek help. The course will interject those management principles.'' The course will be taught at the Higher Commercial Management School on the outskirts of Moscow, which opened last October as part of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev's effort to boost the Soviet Union's foreign trade. Students there are the Soviet equivalent of senior managers _ those holding high-level or top positions in state enterprises. Most are university graduates, and some hold doctorate degrees, said AMA President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Horton. There are non-Soviet students as well. The learning process will be a two-way street, according to Horton. ``They're not quite sure how good we're going to be at this _ we're not even on the learning curve yet,'' he said. By Clinton Wilder, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Proof that you can go hom Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: susan1 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: For Susan Mersereau, vice-president and general manager of Weyerhaeuser Information Systems (WIS), working for a forest products company is a return to her roots. Mersereau's journey back to her birthplace in the state of Washington to work in an industry that employed both her maternal and paternal grandfathers could make an interesting subplot to thirtysomething, the TV program about the baby-boomer generation. Like many of the characters in that show, Mersereau left college in the late 1960s with the growing realization that society was changing and she along with it. Like them, she is finding gratification two decades later by working within a corporate environment. Mersereau is charged with heading the information systems arm of the $7 billion forest products giant that faces the challenges of running a decentralized MIS organization. ``I had a sense that a return to the Pacific Northwest would mean that I was getting away from making a contribution,'' Mersereau says. ``I learned that you can make a contribution wherever you are.'' With just eight years of experience in the corporate world, Mersereau, 42, heads an independent business unit formed in 1985 to sell services and software outside Weyerhaeuser Co. as well as to internal customers. Outside clients, including Coopervision, Inc., James River Corp. and Chevron Corp., account for about 15% of WIS' business. Mersereau manages a staff of approximately 400 people. Mersereau graduated from Scripps College, a small university in Southern California in 1968. She and her husband were newlyweds headed for Chicago, where her husband would attend law school. They arrived on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, which erupted into a melee between antiwar protestors and the Chicago police. Newcomers to town, they watched it from afar. However, she was not to remain an observer for long. Although her husband had law school, Mersereau's goals had not been clearly defined. ``I had thought I wanted to stay home and have children,'' she says. ``When I graduated from college, not many women went on to graduate school. It was a misdirected image. We were the first of the baby-boomer generation. We were still in a transitional mode in terms of our roles.'' She took a job teaching in one of Chicago's inner-city schools. ``It put me in touch with all the problems of that time,'' she remembers. ``Chicago was a major shift in terms of my prior experiences, but I had always been adventuresome. It was another opportunity to learn about people.'' At the same time, she attended graduate school at the University of Chicago. During her two years of teaching, she faced the frustrations inherent in schools that are short on resources but long on need. ``You can't deal with teaching without dealing with food, with health care and with the welfare system,'' she explains. ``I wrestled with how you intervene in the system.'' Eventually, she discovered that she was more suited to administrative work than teaching. ``I'm very results-oriented,'' Mersereau says. ``A lot of the time with teaching, you don't see the results of your work. I needed it to be more immediate and concrete.'' At the University of Illinois at Chicago, she became a program coordinator of a project to educate Hispanic teachers and employ them in the community. It seemed that she had found her niche. However, Mersereau's husband had finished law school and landed a job in Washington, D.C. In Washington, Mersereau continued to work on behalf of education, this time with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). At HEW, she researched special educational programs to determine if they were eligible for federal funding. Washington, D.C., turned out to be a shorter stint for Mersereau and her husband than Chicago. The two discussed a move to Seattle, close to where Mersereau had grown up. ``We had a joke with our friends who were from Seattle: `The last one out of Seattle, turn out the lights,' '' she recalls. Yet Mersereau and her husband were one of 12 couples in their circle that migrated back to the state of Washington. In Seattle, she took a job with the local school district. It was there that she first began working with computers. Seattle was faced with a shrinking student population and the need to implement a mandatory integration program. Computers were used for large-scale demographic simulations. ``I've always looked at computers, then and today, as a tool to help us solve problems faster and more efficiently,'' she says. Mersereau spent seven years with the Seattle school district. In 1980, she took her first corporate job as manager of advanced technology at Weyerhaeuser, but the transition was not traumatic. After some research, she had determined that Weyerhaeuser had a record of social responsibility within the state of Washington. ``I had pretty much achieved what I wanted to do in the public sector,'' Mersereau explains. ``I grew up in a business environment; the whole forest products industry is not foreign to me.'' Today, Mersereau is divorced. She juggles her free time between her 14-year-old daughter, her demanding job at Weyerhaeuser and various committees. She sits on the Governor's Board for Information Services, which advises the state of Washington on ways to implement technology. She also serves on a board that supports new forms of dance and art. Her assessment of her life sounds like a maxim for the 1980s: ``You start out on one path and you explore and test until you find out what works and doesn't work for you.'' By Julie Pitta, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Land O' Lakes spreads val Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: landolak Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: ARDEN HILLS, Minn. _ The milk collectors face the frigid and clean Midwestern morning air as they have for the past 65 years; in their daily travels, they will reap a harvest of what will soon be churned into Land O' Lakes sweet cream butter. But unlike in the 1920s, computers are playing an ever-increasing role within the Land O'Lakes of today. Land O'Lakes, Inc. is a cooperative business, owned by 1,400 farmers' cooperatives in eight states and, in turn, some 175,000 farmers. The business thrives on many products other than butter: Nationally, Land O'Lakes is also known for its cheese products. In the Midwest, the company is involved in milk, ice cream, hot dog and turkey businesses, and within farming communities, Land O'Lakes is a major player in the seed, animal feed, fertilizer and agricultural chemicals areas. The company also has holdings in the petroleum business, from oil exploration to refining and retailing the oil. During the last several years, Land O'Lakes has undergone many changes, and the 200-member information systems team has played a major role in those changes. ``We've decentralized the systems development, and that makes the development groups very responsive to the particular needs and priorities of each of the businesses,'' said Gary Vanic, vice-president of information systems. The decentralization also applies to the systems funding for the businesses, he said. Churning issues ``People think that because you're not a public stock organization, you're immune to public stock-type pressures,'' Vanic said, ``but given the macroeconomics of the farm economy, we get the same kinds of pressure to restructure and make things happen for our owners as well.'' The U.S. farm economy woes have been reflected in Land O'Lakes' business with flat sales during the past six years, Vanic said. However, the company is growing through ventures and alliances that have brought about cost consolidation, and its profit margins have grown in the past two years. ``You've got to keep changing or you're going to die in this business,'' Vanic said. In 1987, Land O'Lakes reported sales of $2.2 billion and profits (which the cooperative refers to as net margins) of $12.4 million. In 1986, the company had slightly higher sales than it did in 1987, but net margins were just $10.1 million. Vanic's mandate is to bring value for the farmers, and his tools are systems. Part of the value comes in the form of strategic mergers and ventures with other cooperatives. In one of its largest alliances, Land O'Lakes got together in 1986 with Cenex, Inc., another Midwest cooperative with $1.1 billion in revenue. Vanic said the trade territories of both cooperatives overlapped almost perfectly, and both companies have feed business, petroleum business and agronomy (fertilizer and chemicals). Three joint ventures formed The cooperatives agreed to pool their assets for the similar businesses and formed three joint ventures: one for feed, to be run by Land O'Lakes; one for petroleum, to be run by Cenex; and one for agronomy, to be split evenly between the companies. With the agreement set, Vanic had just weeks to get the systems up and running for a Jan. 1, 1987 deadline. ``We had 10 weeks to disassemble $2 billion worth of businesses from a systems standpoint and put them back together in a much different form,'' he said. The result was a success, and Vanic credits much of that success to a great deal of top-down support from the companies' presidents, Land O'Lakes' Ralph Hofstad and Cenex's Noel Estenson. Vanic said that while the venture with Cenex saved money for both parties, the companies began looking for other areas in which consolidation could be applied. One targeted area was systems. ``In May 1987, we put the systems organizations of both Cenex and Land O'Lakes together,'' he said. ``When we got done, we had reduced our costs in IS about 30% overall and improved our response time,'' he added. Serving two parents Early retirements and some layoffs helped to reduce costs, he said, and the current systems group has an approximately 50-to-50 ratio of Cenex and Land O'Lakes employees. ``Now we're serving two parent corporations in a joint venture of IS organizations,'' Vanic said. Systems enhancements in recent years at Land O'Lakes include improved order entry in all areas and software applications used on PCs at the local farm cooperatives to help farmers keep abreast of new developments in agricultural chemicals and fertilizers. In hardware, Land O'Lakes headquarters is the home to an IBM 3084 QX, a Hewlett-Packard Co. Spectrum 8 and 1,000 PCs. Outside, there are many minicomputers at various plants and feed mills and an IBM Systems Network Architecture network connected to 2,500 terminals. From the Land O'Lakes headquarters to Cenex headquarters 17 miles away at Inver Grove Heights, Minn., the companies are running a microwave system to share data. As a backup, they use Hyperchannel from Network Systems Corp., which runs at T1 speeds over terrestrial lines between the buildings. By Alan J. Ryan, CW staff <<<>>> Title : The debate over project p Author : Gary Robins Source : CW Comm FileName: grandld Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: When Tom Giammo stepped into the job of assistant commissioner of information systems at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) in 1986, that department's automation efforts were in shambles. The General Accounting Office (GAO) had just released the findings of a study on the endeavor, and they were not pleasant. Among the black marks noted were inadequate oversight, cost escalations and schedule delays of two to three years. There was no person who could be faulted for this unfortunate situation, according to Giammo. Although human error was certainly a factor, the real cause of the Patent Office's automation dysfunction was the assumption that planning should be done on a grand scale. ``To think you can write down the requirements ahead [of time] is the first and probably the most significant mistake you can make,'' Giammo says. His sentiment flies in the face of what has been a prevailing practice in the federal government for many years. Comprehensive and long-term have long been the preferred modes for information systems acquisition and installation. Recently, however, the grand design or big bang approach has been called into question in many quarters. In a grand design scenario, an agency or department undertakes a large and complex project and attempts to combine all requirements _ data processing hardware and software, communications systems and related technologies and services _ into a single procurement. As the General Services Administration (GSA) pointed out in a critical report titled ``An Evaluation of the Grand Design Approach'' and published in September 1988, there are many problems with this approach. One is that the grander the scope of the project, the larger the list of requirements and the more time it takes to put together a request for proposal (RFP). As a result, an agency may take a year or more to write the requirements, up to two years to go through the procurement process, and three years may pass before the work starts. Managing such projects is also problematic, the GSA points out. One reason is that the average job tenure for top managers is shorter than the span of the average grand design project. Also, oversight for these projects is often delegated to managers at lower levels, who lack the experience and power to make decisions. These and other factors, the GSA's report suggests, have contributed to excessive dependence on the services of systems integrators. In its report, the GSA stopped short of saying that the grand design approach was totally unworkable. What it did say, however, was that ``The odds are against it.'' Francis McDonough, deputy of the GSA's Information Resources Management service, argues that any project should be measured by three criteria: ``Whether it comes in on time, whether it accomplished what you said it would accomplish and whether you did it within the dollars.'' He says, ``Those are three fair measures, and, based upon those measures, you have to look long and hard to find a successful [grand design] project.'' The message that the GSA was trying to send in its report, McDonough claims, was simply that it might be time to consider alternatives. ``Maybe we should learn from experience and adopt a little detour in the road,'' he suggests. The specific direction that the GSA recommended was toward a more modular and incremental approach. After surveying his own department's troubles, Giammo reached roughly the same conclusion. Instead of trying to encompass everything that needed to be done in a single swallow, he decided to set up a process that was based on smaller ``gulps.'' Actual production systems are now rolled out at the PTO on a limited basis and then evaluated based on user feedback. After each gulp has been digested, the PTO either issues a task order for the next release or institutes new requirement studies. The premise is that the original requirements can be significantly improved through feedback based on experience. ``You don't get people to rethink their jobs unless they have the real thing in front of them,'' Giammo says. Building sufficient flexibility into the design process and contracts can yield significant rewards, he adds. As an example, he points to the fact that, while zoom capability was rated a high priority in the initial planning for a patent-search application, actual use revealed the feature was less necessary than expected. This discovery meant that the patent application did not require the expensive fast storage that had been planned. Giammo's point is that he could not have known this at the outset; without a special contract, the initial requirements would have been the final requirements. Of course, proceeding in this fashion is not without problems. For one thing, Giammo says, there is significant pressure in the federal government to go the grand design route. ``The classic approach is implicit in a lot of the regulations that you deal with,'' he notes. It is difficult to get money for a project unless precise numbers are offered. Budget examiners, for example, need to have exact numbers three years in advance. From the budget examiners' perspective, Giammo says, if you do not know exactly what functions you are going to have, what equipment you are going to use or how many of something you want to buy, then you basically do not know what you are doing: ``You lose credibility in their eyes.'' Lee Mercer, deputy undersecretary for export administration at the Department of Commerce, has also encountered the pressure to think big. There has been a strong bias toward grand design, he says, both within his own agency and in the federal government as a whole. Mercer is in the unique position of being able to compare the results of both approaches, because he tried both methods in an attempt to solve some major bottleneck problems at his agency. Inherited trouble When Mercer took office in July 1986, the Commerce Department was manually processing 100,000 export licenses per year. There were major complaints about delays in the license program and the responsiveness of the department. License approval was taking too long, and exporters could not get through on the telephone to find out the status of their licenses because the phone lines were always busy. Everyone agreed that a new system was needed. What they could not agree on was how much of the problem to tackle at once. ``There was a stalemate here,'' Mercer says, ``between the people who were insisting on a grand design effort and those who wanted to make some discrete incremental improvements to the system.'' As a compromise, Mercer agreed to go ahead with the grand design plan if he was allowed to make incremental improvements in the meantime. In July 1986, the export administration started down a two-track path _ the process of developing a grand design was started, and Mercer began making some modular changes in the current system. The grand design route proceeded as follows. It took until the end of 1986 to get the proposal out for a consultant to study the problem. One was selected in April 1987 to work on the study that would be needed in order to generate an RFP. A little more than a year later, in May 1988, the consultant delivered the study in seven volumes. The cost was $700,000 for the study plus internal costs for a four-person internal consulting team that was assigned to work on the project almost exclusively. His evaluation: ``If I had gone grand design, I would have been faced in May, almost two years out, with no changes _ zero changes _ in an export-licensing system that everyone was saying was absolutely wrong.'' During the same period of time, Mercer had begun to tackle some of the export administration's problems on a priority basis. The biggest complaint involved the telephones, so the decision was made to install a computerized voice-response system. This entailed buying two Digital Equipment Corp. minicomputers and a voice synthesizer, interfacing the minis to the department's mainframe and installing a 32-line call system. Mercer cut time from the procurement cycle by using available funds, modifying existing contracts and using contracts for small-business or minority business set-aside programs. These allowed him to avoid the lengthy competitive-bid process. The revamped phone system was operational by October 1986, Mercer says, and the return on investment was immediate: The department went from answering only 25% of its calls to picking up 100%, Mercer maintains. The next priority was to speed up the licensing process by automating data entry. This was to be accomplished by installing optical character readers (OCR) to scan hard copy and a direct entry system based on computer-to-computer data exchange. Work started on an RFP for the OCR project in the fall of 1986; the contract was awarded in the summer of 1987. The electronic data transaction was started in the middle of '87. Both systems are now operational, Mercer says, and have eliminated 95% to 98% of manual data entry previously required at a savings of $600,000 per year. The cost for both systems was less than $300,000. Other incremental improvements were made at the export administration during the same time frame. An automated search program was written in-house to make better use of the database, and all licensing officers were given terminals. ``In the time it took to have a contractor deliver seven volumes telling us what kind of work we did here and how we might automate it, we automated it,'' Mercer points out. ``If I had taken that grand design [approach], I still wouldn't have a contractor on board. The process would have stretched into 1991 _ at least three years behind our own major automation of the system.'' Mercer does not question the quality of the grand design document or its recommendations, which were similar to those that he implemented, but he does object to the time consumption inherent in the process. Grand designs lead to an all-or-nothing approach that forces users to wait years for results, he says. There is another side to the discussion. Grand design proponents argue that, for many projects, settling for less than a big and complete picture prior to procurement is a drastic mistake, because what you wind up with is a system in which the pieces do not fit together. Lon Rosenman, senior principle at Cap Gemini America's national management consulting group, points to a Department of Agriculture project to automate all county offices, which involved more than 2,800 minicomputer-based systems, rewiring, communications and software. In that particular case, he says, grand design was the best way to go, as it was the most efficient way for the department to connect all its offices at one time. Rosenman does not contend that all large efforts demand large and unified design plans. ``I have seen a number of situations involving proposals for very large information systems,'' he says, ``where it was realized after the fact that, although the objective should remain, implementation on a piece-by-piece basis would probably have been better . . . would have yielded a much greater return on investment, responded to immediate needs and allowed for changes to reflect actual user requirements.'' Significant semantics The distinction that Rosenman makes between design and implementation is significant. Many defend the idea of a grand ``design'' but yield on the idea of a grand ``implementation.'' The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which advises the president on resources for all investments in technology and makes policy on federal information technology, also applies the distinction. The OMB's view is that implementation and procurement are separate issues from planning and design. ``I'm not sure I know of any case where grand design is a bad idea,'' says an official at the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, ``but I know of very few cases where a grand implementation would make sense.'' That official laments the general tendency to lump the two subjects together. ``The title, if not the substance, [of the GSA's grand design report] leads one to conclude that grand designs lead to dreadful consequences,'' he says. ``Unfortunately, there is a confusion between grand designs, of which I am in favor, and grand implementations and grand procurements, which can often be disasters.'' The disasters happen, he explains, when agencies turn projects over to contractors with instructions to come back in 10 years with completed systems. If you abdicate responsibility in that way, he says, it will not be apparent until the system is delivered _ or more often, not delivered _ that the implementation may have been flawed or that the assumptions no longer make sense. What the OMB prescribes is not just to break implementation into smaller chunks but to define the chunks to provide interim capabilities. That way, if the initial design had some flaws or assumptions have changed, the agency can make adjustments. As a demonstration of its contention that phased implementation and grand design are not mutually exclusive, the OMB offers up the example of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) air-traffic control system, which is one of the presidential priority systems selected by the OMB for high-level attention. That system cost $2.3 billion in 1988 and is expected to cost approximately $17 billion over 20 years. ``The FAA has a rather substantial long-range vision,'' the OMB official says. ``I wouldn't call it a plan, because a plan suggests some metric precision about what is going to happen, but it is clearly a design of what the air-traffic control system ought to look like. On the other hand, it has been proceeding in a modular fashion. Several years ago, it embarked on upgrading regional centers. Recently, it awarded a major contract to replace the controller workstations in the on-route systems.'' Other federal information managers share the OMB's view. Roger Cooper, deputy administrator of management at the Farmer's Home Administration (FHA), says he believes that the grand design concept is essential. ``Having a modular approach does not make any sense if you don't know how all the pieces are going to fit together . . . but you don't have to do them all simultaneously under one contract.'' Cooper indicates that there should be an overall global design document to show how all the parts are going to fit together. Piecemeal practice A more recent convert is the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Rather than award a single systems integration contract for its $1 billion data management systems upgrade project, as had been planned, the agency anounced in late January that it had decided to perform its acquisitions on a project-by-project basis. The change in implementation strategy, says Jean Lakey, program manager of the project, was prompted in part by discussions with the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Army on lessons learned about implementing large projects. Other factors weighing in favor of a staged and internally managed approach, she says, were the following: Concern that any problem in one part of the single-implementation project could hold back the entire program. Interest in speeding the development of critically needed system components. The potential difficulty of having to justify the aggregate cost of 17 separate computer systems to Congress. According to Lakey, managing the program in bite-size pieces just made more sense in light of all those considerations, but the overall plan _ the grand vision _ has not changed, just the implementation. ``We still have an umbrella program, and we're making sure that all of our proj-ects will be integrated under that program,'' she reports. Catch the wave The GAO, the independent auditing arm of Congress, is doing its best to ensure that more federal information systems groups follow Lakey's lead. A GAO report released last November titled ``Information Technology Issues'' did not discuss the size or scope of projects as contributing factors in the project failures cited; instead, it concentrated on how inadequately defined requirements and unsound management practices helped sabotage the projects. However, one GAO official says that the agency is, indeed, anxious to encourage modularized implementation. ``Most projects are not [proceeding in this fashion],'' he says, ``and that's what we are trying to stop.'' As an instance of successfully applied influence, the official cites the Army/Navy/Air Force-sponsored $1.1 billion Trimus, or Tri-Service Medical Information Systems, project for automating military hospitals. Although the initial intent was to award the Trimus contract in a single package, the GAO intervened and was able to convince senior management in charge of the project, which is under the jurisdiction of the undersecretary of defense for medical affairs, that it would be more practical to install and test incrementally in a limited number of facilities. ``What we've been able to do,'' the official points out, ``was to say that it doesn't make sense to send [the product] out to 600 places and have 600 problems.'' The more you listen to opponents and proponents of grand design, the more it seems that reconciliation is not far off. In many instances, the debate is really more about wording and definition than practice. All-encompassing is out Few federal information systems managers are apparently in favor of perpetuating the classic systems development approach that the GSA says leads to grand designs _ one that advocates defining all the requirements up front and then executing a single and final design. FHA's Cooper, for example, characterizes system development as a sequential process, and his description sounds very much like what PTO's Giammo is doing. ``What we are arguing for,'' Cooper says, ``is a more iterative process that results from doing prototyping. On a billion-dollar system, I would hate to think that there was going to be one giant contract that assumed you knew what you were going be doing three or four years from now.'' According to Cooper, there is a movement within the federal government to increase prototyping. Rather than fix requirements in time, a prototype would be constructed to solicit feedback from users, and then the requirements could be refined and the prototype could be expanded. Like Giammo, Cooper says this will help to pinpoint what the users want as opposed to what they think they want and weed out the bad ideas. Furthermore, those who object to the points made in the GSA's report on grand design might find some comfort in another study that agency released a month later. Prepared by American Management Systems, Inc. (AMS), an Arlington, Va.-based systems consulting and development firm, this study analyzed 18 major systems modernization projects in 18 government organizations. Although the theme of reduced scope as a goal for federal information systems projects also resounded strongly in this publication, the suggestions were somewhat more muted. ``We were finding that in many of the programs, the scope was just too large and that they were failing because the scale of the effort was beyond that which the agency could successfully execute,'' says Larry Seidel, vice-president of AMS' federal civilian agency business. Many of the agencies, Seidel says, were not particularly successful in completing all or parts of their projects on time and within budget. To serve as guidelines for future projects, the study came up with 10 critical success factors for systems modernization, one of which was selecting the appropriate scope for the project. Matching the effort Seidel views the grand design-vs.-incremental debate this way: ``It's not so much that either approach is always desirable. What's right depends on the circumstances. One of the most important critical success factors we cited, and one that goes to the heart of the debate, is the issue of properly sizing the effort and biting off the right amount. It says that grand design is right in some cases and incremental is right in other cases, but that the way to [determine] which approach is the right one is to assess the different risks of the alternatives.'' The study recommends that senior management weigh the risks involved before the scale of the project is determined. The right way to approach a large project, Seidel says, is with this question: ``What's the right scope to ensure an 80% to 90% success rate? I think that if you look at it that way,'' he continues, ``you come out with a different looking project than the ones that have been historically embarked upon.'' In fact, the AMS study found that the single most important critical success factor was not the size of the project but the amount of talent available to run the project. Seidel says, ``Our conclusion was if you don't have the talent, don't do the project. There is no substitute for talent, and that may be the true limiting factor on selecting the right scale of project.'' By Gary Robins; Robins is a free-lance writer based in Northfield, Minn. Assistance was provided by Mitch Betts, Computerworld's Washington, D.C., bureau chief. <<<>>> Title : Breaking a classic mold Author : Gary Robins Source : CW Comm FileName: grandbar Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: As a tool used to identify an entire category of systems undertakings, the term ``grand design'' is not the most precise descriptive instrument. The GSA's report, ``An Evaluation of the Grand Design Approach,'' defines the type as a large computer application system in which all possible requirements _ software, hardware, data communications, telecommunications and all related services and technologies _ are aggregated. While grand designs are assumed to be a common part of the federal business process, making a grand design tag stick to any project can be a problem. The same large project can be labeled grand design by some and not a grand design by others. For example, an Air Force project, Phase IV, which started in the early 1980s and ended in 1985, upgraded computer systems in 160 Air Force bases worldwide. The project was carried out by a single systems integrator, Sperry Corp. (now Unisys Corp.), and involved not only replacing hardware but also converting 10 million lines of existing code. The life cycle value of the project was $800 million, according to Andrew Bilinsky, former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Command, Control, Communications and Computer Systems. While some call this project a successful grand design, others say it doesn't fit the paradigm because it did not involve new applications. While the term ``grand design'' may not be a precise instrument, it may be most effective as a blunt instrument to get people to think about the way they have been approaching systems design. Not all big-dollar computer procurements are grand designs. While the $1 billion-plus Air Force Computer Acquisition Center 251 contract for as many as 20,000 Unix platforms is large and includes both systems and application software, it is basically a hardware buy and thus does not fit the grand design mold. Conversely, smaller dollar projects _ those less than $100 million _ are not excluded. The GSA's Francis McDonough explains, ``When I started out, I thought that grand designs were systems of $100 million and above. But you can have a grand design in a small agency that [ends up being] too big for the agency to undertake.'' GARY ROBINS <<<>>> Title : Government takes lessons Author : Esther Surden Source : CW Comm FileName: surden Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Some government insiders and many on the outside looking in are convinced that government information systems can be run in a more businesslike manner. Their point has little to do with money management: ``Businesslike'' refers to the concept of aligning information systems with the larger goals of the organization. Recently, it has become fairly common for firms to think about information systems as key to business strategy. Some consultants and information systems managers say such a unified approach is rare within government organizations. This view, of course, does not go uncontested. Many government information systems managers say that their current planning methods do take agency goals into account. They argue strenuously for maintaining the status quo, saying that the five-year planning process already in place throughout most of the Information Resources Management (IRM) departments is enough, as are the triennial IRM reviews. Glenn Haney, director at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is one of those managers. ``Long-range IRM planning is integrated with both the agency's program planning and the entire budgeting process, and it forces people to orient IRM goals with the missions of each department. Everything that they want to support has to be mission-related,'' he says. Nonetheless, consultants such as Coopers & Lybrand, which acts as a consultant and systems integrator for many agencies of the federal government, say there is room for improvement. That firm, for example, tries to foster more goal-driven planning among its government clients. ``We attempt to get an agency to take its mission statement, reduce it to goals and objectives and then identify the technical goals and objectives that would support those goals,'' says Steve Mucchetti, a partner in charge of federal systems. The objective, he says, must be to design an information architecture that will meet all the needs of all levels of management; that means identifying functions, data requirements and interconnections and determining cost factors. Peter G. W. Keen, executive director of the International Center for Information Technologies, a Washington, D.C.-based research firm, says what is needed is a more executive orientation in the job of information resources manager, an awareness of issues such as public perception and a vision of how information systems can enhance an agency's image through improved service. ``You have to have an overall framework,'' he says. What Keen is suggesting is something akin to a chief information officer, as long as the change of title represents a real change in responsibility and as long as the job is given to the appropriate person. One of the few government information resources managers now carrying the new title is Janet Barnes. Barnes is a director of IRM and a CIO at Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., a government agency that insures private pensions. She says she firmly believes a more businesslike approach is called for in government information systems management. ``The IRM function alone can be a full-time occupation,'' she says. But, she adds, ``These people wind up worrying more about automation and beefing up data processing departments than anything else.'' What Barnes wants IRM departments to concentrate on is the overall picture _ looking at the long-term benefits that information resources can provide. Right now, she says, ``Almost nobody is examining their agency's business, trying to figure out where that business is going and what information resources management needs [to do] to support it.'' Barnes aims to be an exception. Although typical IRM tasks have consumed most of the year and a half that she has been at her job, she has begun to take a look at Pension Benefit Guarantee's strategic goals to see how information technology can support them. In fact, one project is already under way _ a database consolidation effort that will make examining cases and handling public inquiries easier for staff members. By Esther Surden; Surden is a free-lance writer based in North Caldwell, N.J. <<<>>> Title : How politics can pinch IS Author : Patricia Cinelli Source : CW Comm FileName: politics Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: No one who works for the federal government is totally insulated from politics. Information systems managers are no exception. Even though they are neither elected nor appointed, these individuals and their departments are affected by the tides of partisanship and public opinion that sweep through the capital. Congressional and presidential elections can have a significant impact on the budgets and agendas of IS departments. If, for example, those elected or appointed to important posts are either not interested in technological investments or not aware that such investments make organizations more effective, information systems can stagnate. That, some IS managers say, is what happened throughout the 1970s. During the Reagan years, by contrast, information technology was given higher priority. During the past 10 years, says Frank McDonough, deputy commissioner of Information Resources Management (IRM) at the General Services Administration, the government's entire IRM budget ``almost doubled, from $9 billion to $17 billion.'' Although the executive branch's IS policies are apt to change, they are stable compared with the system of political appointments that often forces IS managers to cope with half-finished directives and midstream changes. ``The biggest problem we see is when a political appointee leaves in the middle of a project and a new person comes in,'' says Howard Grandier, director of the Office of Software Development and Information Technology, a government department that provides assistance to other federal agencies in IRM technologies and acquisition. The new appointee usually ``wants to study the project for six months and puts it on hold.'' The risk of such delays rises proportionally with the project's size and scope, he says. Indecision and meddling are not the rule, however. On the positive side, many political bosses tend to leave technology issues to the experts. Reed Phillips, director of IRM at the U.S. Department of Commerce, says political appointees are not usually interested in the details of technological projects. ``Politicians,'' he says, ``are usually preoccupied with other pressing issues.'' Some initiatives from the legislative branch have been aimed at getting more qualified professional administrators into political-appointee positions. Now that the Veterans Administration has a Cabinet position, for example, its assistant secretary of administration must have some professional qualifications to hold that job. Robert Head is not sure that the requirement will make the IS manager's job any easier. Head, president of Fedinfo, Inc., a Stafford, Va.-based firm that provides marketing consulting to federal systems vendors, suggests that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Whether political appointees are involved in day-to-day issues or not, their public image can affect the working environment of the IS department. For example, when former Attorney General Edwin Meese became the focus of unfavorable publicity after being accused of unethical behavior, IS employees in the U.S. Department of Justice had to contend with the perception that political influence might be playing a part in the procurement process. Although Steven R. Colgate, deputy assistant attorney general of administration and information services at the Justice Department, calls these suspicions absurd, he says that the notoriety was sufficient to cause concern among vendors about the legitimacy of the department's purchasing procedures. Some try to minimize the vulnerability of systems projects by modularizing their procurements. ``We try not to make procurements too big,'' says Edward Hanley, director of IRM at the Enivronmental Protection Agency. ``Instead, we try to have one [procurement request] for the system itself, one for the software and one for the computers.'' Leasing equipment is another option many managers, including Hanley, use: ``We do five-year ordering contracts, but, if we lease, we don't have to order it if we don't need it.'' With change the only real constant within the federal government, information systems managers have no choice but to learn to adjust to the varying tides of partisanship and public policy. Such an adjustment might get easier with time, but it is never simple. By Patricia Cinelli; Cinelli is a free-lance writer based in Washington, D.C. <<<>>> Title : Technologies for the futu Author : Arnold S. Levine Source : CW Comm FileName: levinesi Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: In its just-released revision to its Five-Year ADP and Telecommunications Plan, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) anticipates two trends in government information systems from now to the year 2000. Most obviously, the amount of computing power needed by federal agencies will continue to grow. Second, the OMB says, the technology purchased during the next few years ``will change the way we do business.'' According to an official at the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, some of the technologies that the OMB expects to have the greatest impact on the way the federal government does business are database management systems, including text management; artificial intelligence; electronic data interchange (EDI); and special-purpose and scientific computing. Federal agencies will be turning more and more to electronic databases to handle geographic information, to AI for decision support tools and to EDI for the mundane jobs of processing financial transactions and expediting procurements. EDI, the official notes, will be ``terribly important'' for automating many processes that are currently very labor intensive. Furthermore, he adds, the kinds of scientific computers and specialized workstations that are now used in government laboratories for highly specialized applications will soon be tapped for more generalized uses. In the short term, ``scientific computing will have real-world applications,'' he explains. Mass storage critical Howard Grandier, director of the government's Office of Software Development and Information Technology (OSDIT), says technologies that enable managers to store huge amounts of data will soon become crucial. Developments in optical disk mean that ``you could have all the data for the U.S. Census on micro or CD, the way they do for music,'' he suggests. Jim Unterspan, FLITE project manager at the U.S. Air Force's Legal Information Services office in Denver, has already found a use for mass storage in text management applications. FLITE, which stands for Federal Legal Information Through Electronics, is a general-purpose legal information system. The Air Force is now using Inquire, a text management system from Pittsford, N.Y.-based Infodata Systems Corp., for two major information systems. The first, FLITE, installed late in 1986, contains more than three billion characters of text covering legislation, case-law treaties and other information relevant to military legal concerns. The second system is currently in development; the Air Force Claims Information Management System will archive the tracking of all the legal claims in which the Air Force is involved. FLITE, which resides on an IBM 4381 located in San Antonio, can be accessed by 1,300 Air Force attorneys in 350 separate offices through a CCITT X.25 public data network. By the middle of this year, Unterspan says, the Air Force plans to move FLITE to an IBM 3090 and extend service to all 5,000 lawyers working for the U.S. Department of Defense. Grandier predicts _ and the Air Force's expanding web of users implies _ that networks of all kinds are a large part of the planning picture for government agencies. ``Two things we're sure of are that LANs are growing and that in-house wide-area networks linking the LANs will be next,'' says Don Black, a team leader in OSDIT's Federal Office Automation Center. Black envisions networks that can tie hundreds of workstations together through a mixture of fiber optics and twisted-pair copper cabling. Fiber optics will not supersede copper wiring in the short term, Black says: Copper is cheap and easy to manage and retrofitting is expensive. Fiber will, however, be important for backbones and secure networks. Probably the most promising communications-related technology in the government's future is EDI. The official at the OMB is not alone in his assessment that EDI could significantly affect governmental efficiency. That opinion is also expressed by Ben Milbrandt, formerly of Navistar International and now a fellow of the Logistics Management Institute in Bethesda, Md., a federally funded defense research center. Milbrandt sees EDI for transaction processing and electronic funds transfer as a major technology influencing government and industry. A number of agencies are using _ or plan to use _ EDI for accepting invoices from vendors, making payments, transmitting orders and generally reducing the time needed for the repetitive processing of nearly identical transactions. Among the agencies studying EDI applications are the Defense Logistics Agency, the General Services Administration's (GSA) Federal Supply Service and the Treasury Department's Financial Management Service (FMS). The goal for all these agencies is the same, says FMS Commissioner W. E. Douglas: ``to wring the paper out of the system.'' Douglas wants to use technology to automate the collection of taxes from businesses through electronic debiting of employer accounts and, hopefully, to cut down on the 300,000 errors that the current paper-based system produces annually. AI to bloom Another technology that is expected to blossom in the federal arena in the next few years is artificial intelligence. One fertile area for AI in government is systems development and maintenance. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for example, is working with Los Angeles-based Inference Corp. to develop a knowledge base that would assist in the development of new mission-support applications.'' Grandier expects that AI-enhanced code generators and conversion tools will be heavily used at many agencies and departments interested in cutting back on systems development and maintenance labor. Another task for AI in the federal government is in decision support. Agencies such as the GSA, which developed Executrac, an IBM-based executive information system, are using decision support tools to track progress within their agencies toward certain goals, set performance levels and schedule accordingly. By Arnold S. Levine; Levine is a free-lance writer based in Gaithersburg, Md., and a frequent contributor to Federal Computer Week. <<<>>> Title : Just say `maybe' to syste Author : Alan Radding Source : CW Comm FileName: radding2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: A systems integrator wants you to give him a check and let him run. That's insanity.'' So says Jerrold Patz, director of information systems development for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs in Boston. But Patz's feeling does not extend to banning systems integrators from his organization. He went with one. Eventually. Reluctantly. The fact is that even IS organizations that make extensive use of systems integrators are not always enamored with the situation. The natural tendency is to want to do the job yourself. Nobody knows your IS organization or cares as much about your company as you do. It can be uncomfortable to turn over the responsibility and technical decision-making authority for a major information systems project to outsiders. But there are good reasons to use a systems integrator for some IS projects, and the success of such a venture requires that the IS organization give a lot of control and decision-making authority to the integrator. If the integrator firm is to guarantee the final, desired result, then it must be given the authority to do the job as it sees fit. Still, Patz's original solution to the state of Massachusetts' latest systems integration problem did not call for a systems integrator at all _ that is, not a classic outside systems integrator who would take responsibility for the entire project from start to finish. Instead, the state's information systems staff was going to act as its own systems integrator and assemble an ideal solution for the exact situation. ``We wanted to get the best stuff. We didn't want any compromises. So, we were going to do the integration ourselves,'' Patz explains. In late 1985, the problem the agency faced was the need to upgrade and integrate the state's antiquated environmental information systems _ built on an IBM 3031 _ which served the needs of five major state agencies involved in environmental issues. The systems were so inadequate that the department feared it could no longer fulfill its legislative and constitutional mandates. In many ways, the IS staff knew what had to be done better than anyone else. They knew the limitations of the existing systems. They knew the political issues within the affected organizations. And they already had an extensive consulting study detailing the solution strategy, including specific hardware and software recommendations. So Patz and his staff decided to do the job themselves. They planned to break the massive task into three distinct phases and handle each phase successively. Theoretically, this approach would give the department the very best system at the very best price, without having to make any compromises. Logically, every part of the system would work with every other part, and the department's IS staff could handle the job themselves, saving the cost of a systems integrator by supplying their own ``sweat equity,'' Patz explains. Best of all, the department would maintain absolute control of the project. In practice, Patz learned, such a do-it-yourself approach, no matter how sensible it appears, historically has not worked. ``After discussions with others and hearing about the horror shows, we realized that it would be better to go with a systems integrator who would deliver an integrated product and guarantee it would work,'' he recalls. An integrator would add to the cost, force the department to make some compromises and require a high degree of independent decision-making authority. But in return, Patz could be confident that the system would be delivered on time and perform as specified, or the state would not have to pay. ``Almost every large organization has a multimillion-dollar [information systems] skeleton in the closet,'' says Norman Weizer, senior consultant at the Arthur D. Little, Inc. (ADL) information industries group in Cambridge, Mass. Having heard about some of those skeletons, Patz had good reason to reconsider the initial plan and turn to a systems integrator for the project, which has grown in scope almost tenfold, from $2.5 million as outlined in the initial outside consultants' study to a five-year program costing in excess of $20 million. Patz's project is in state government, and indeed, most of the systems integration market has grown in the government arena (see story page 104). However, systems integrators today are increasingly looking at the private sector, a large but largely untapped market, for their services. ``We're seeing more interest in the private sector, but not nearly to the extent as in government,'' says Jeffrey Kaplan, director of Ledgeway Group, Inc. a market research and consulting firm in Lexington, Mass. The interest from the private sector is starting to bloom because commercial firms' upper management is beginning to ask hard questions of its growing IS department. ``Top management has made huge investments in information systems and now wants to know how to measure the payoff and why end users are still complaining,'' says Walter Culver, vice-president of systems integration at Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) in Washington, D.C. It boils down to accountability and responsiveness, areas in which integrators promise to make a difference. Cooler reception But integrators will not necessarily find the same warm reception in the private sector that they have found in the public arena. ``The private sector is different from federal systems,'' notes Kaplan, pointing to three major differences between the public and private sectors that greatly affect the way private firms view systems integration. First, the government generally has fewer people with top-notch information systems technical and managerial skills. A commercial organization, by comparison, usually has a more professional IS staff. Second, the government is more likely to make sweeping systems changes. In the private sector, changes are usually incremental and evolutionary, not revolutionary. Third, the private sector is uneasy with the large contract expenditures and long-term commitments often required in systems integration, especially in uncertain economic times. Despite the crucial differences between the public and private sectors, there are still valid reasons for commercial IS departments to turn to systems integrators. Because of the constant explosion in technology, for example, information systems are becoming extremely complex. In practice, few IS departments are large enough to effectively handle their day-to-day operational responsibilities, maintenance and new application development and keep up with changing technology. Even when IS can stay abreast of technical advances, it will still lack hands-on experience with the newest technology. Furthermore, systems integration invariably introduces new, unknown elements to the existing system. Yet the focus of the in-house IS staff must stay where its expertise lies _ on the organization's ongoing business and existing systems. Where is this staff going to find the proven expertise and the time to handle a major integration project? Take, the Maryland Department of Human Resources in Baltimore, a public organization that uses systems integrators because its DP staff lacks the expertise to do the job itself, according to Stanley Frerking, director of the department's office of information management. ``[Ours] are very large and complex projects; one includes about three million lines of code, the other about one million lines,'' he notes, adding that these massive projects require skills his staff does not have. And, even if Frerking were confident that his staff could handle such a large, state-of-the-art programming effort involving widespread integration, he says he could not spare them for the task: ``My people are tied up with day-to-day operations.'' Other organizations do not want to bother with becoming information systems experts. Amgen, Inc. in Thousand Oaks, Calif., for example, is a young biotechnology company focused on creating, manufacturing and selling drugs based on recombinant DNA techniques. ``We always felt that hiring people to write code would not get us one day closer to product approval,'' says Larry May, Amgen's vice-president of finance. Instead, Amgen turned to CSC to provide it with a total manufacturing information system. Some organizations simply do not have an IS organization or are under such time pressures that they almost have to turn to systems integrators. Genstar Stone Products Co. in Baltimore, a producer of construction materials, was spun off as an independent entity following the acquisition of its parent company, Genstar Corp. Before the acquisition, Genstar relied on the parent company's IS department in Dallas to handle all its work. The company was sold in November 1986 and was told it had until May 1987 to get off the former parent firm's system. Paul Veltre, the spin-off's director of information resources, was brought in from the outside _ he had been an independent consultant with IS management experience _ to establish the company's IS department. Veltre says he is a strong believer in in-house IS because ``you have control of your own destiny,'' but points out that six months is not enough time to ramp up an entire IS operation from nothing. Instead, he turned to a systems integrator, SHL Systemhouse, Inc. in Ottowa, Ont., Canada, to clone the exact system that the parent company had used. Genstar made a three-year agreement with Systemhouse. The integrator was responsible for getting Genstar's IS functions off the old system and running at Genstar headquarters by the May 1 deadline, which it did. For the rest of the contract period, Systemhouse would run the system with Genstar, thus giving Veltre time to build his own IS department. When is the time ripe? The time to call in a systems integrator in either the private or public sector is when the IS department must do something it has never done before. Other occasions for turning to systems integrators are when there are severe time constraints, when the project will cut across a number of organizational lines and an insider might cause territorial problems, when there are complex technical constraints, when the existing process for solving IS problems is not working and when the project is high-profile or high-risk. Risk sharing may be the most appealing reason for a company to call in a systems integrator, although it may not hold quite the same appeal for the integrator. Risk sharing means that the integrator guarantees a system will work as agreed upon by a certain time for a certain price. The integrator commits itself to throwing as many resources as necessary at the problem to achieve that goal. ``From the client's standpoint, [risk sharing] is very appealing. It makes him breathe a sigh of relief,'' says Lawrence Hadding, director of government marketing at McDonnell Douglas Information Systems Co. in St. Louis. With risk sharing, the client is no longer afraid of being saddled with a multimillion-dollar IS disaster. Risk sharing is achieved by building performance specifications and a timetable into the contract. Patz insisted on very strict performance requirements at every step of the project. Penalties for failure to meet those requirements included liquidated damages, credits and holdbacks. The integrator, McDonnell Douglas, agreed to the terms. Peace of mind does not come not cheap. ``You have to bear in mind that [risk sharing] costs money,'' Patz says. ``It adds to everything you do, so everything is more expensive.'' For instance, even when Patz can buy hardware for less than what the systems integrator charges for it, he must buy it through the integrator. Systems integrators argue that integration does not really add to the total cost. ``MIS cannot do it cheaper than we can,'' Culver insists. For example, few IS departments can get the kind of volume discounts available to a large systems integrator. If IS were to hire the experts that the systems integrator puts onto the project as a matter of course, it is not going to cost any less for comparable talent and may cost more. ``They will have to pay a premium for good people, and then, when the project is over, what does MIS do with those people?'' Culver asks. Software only The Gas Research Institute (GRI) in Chicago got around the cost issue by hiring a systems integrator for only the software portion of its major integration project, which was a classic integration of systems _ each GRI application was on a separate, distinct system, and they all needed to be combined. ``The hardware wasn't part of the systems integrator's charter,'' explains Hugh Naughton, director of information systems. GRI, which performs research and development for the natural gas industry, is a dedicated Wang Laboratories, Inc. shop, so it wanted to handle the hardware component itself. The integrator, Systemhouse, agreed to this unusual plan with the understanding that the system would be designed to run only on the hardware platform described and in use at the start of the project. This setup represents another way of balancing risk sharing. Done in this or a similar way, systems integration does not have to be expensive. Naughton and Systemhouse were able to bring the project in for $1.5 million during a two-year time period. A consultant hired by GRI projected a $2.3 million price tag and a three-year timetable. The politics of integrators The biggest hurdle for IS in using systems integrators is not the technical aspects of the project, but the political issues. Unless the decision to bring in a systems integrator originates with the organization's IS department and not corporate management, as is sometimes the case, the in-house staff can feel slighted. Even when IS management brings in the systems integrator, staff members can still be resentful. Some IS departments _ those that have been preaching their indispensability as the basis for increased funding _ may find it hard to admit to the need for a systems integrator. Others greet integrators as long-awaited problem solvers. Regardless of the welcome, systems integrators tread respectfully around the existing IS staff. According to McDonnell Douglas' Hadding, ``Our philosophy is that we don't push MIS aside. They'll be there when we leave. They know more about their business than we do.'' Patz says he is about to push Hadding's philosophy to its limits. ``We've set up parallel teams, block by block, at every level of the structure. We are going to interface with them one-on-one at a peer level,'' he says. The close relationship will provide constant performance monitoring and allow the in-house staff to thoroughly understand the new system, which they will have to maintain on their own once the contract expires. At Genstar, its relationship with Systemhouse was a little rocky at first, possibly because Genstar did not have an established IS department to wield the organization's authority. ``It was a little hard at first, sorting out who was the chief and who were the Indians,'' Veltre recalls, but once that issue was settled, a strong relationship developed. Systemhouse knew from the outset that the goal was to develop in-house capabilities at Genstar, and it has been cooperative in that effort. Who ya gonna call? Once the decision is made to use a systems integrator, determining which one to call can be tricky. In the governmental process, there is typically a systematic bidding procedure based on points awarded for technical aspects and a separate cost-management proposal. In the private sector, formal, competitive bidding plays less of a role. Genstar put out a request for proposals and selected Systemhouse, although it was not the lowest bidder. Instead, geographic location was more important, and Systemhouse had a Maryland office. Genstar wanted the systems integrator nearby after its frustrating experiences with a data center located 2,000 miles away. Of course, Veltre still had to be comfortable with Systemhouse's somewhat higher price tag. Amgen went shopping for a packaged solution and interviewed eight vendors. After reducing the options to a choice of two systems integrators, it selected CSC in part because it liked the modular approach of its manufacturing package. The company could use the CSC manufacturing system while maintaining its own financial reporting systems. GRI unintentionally ended up using two systems integrators simultaneously for the duration of its project. The company was impressed with the energy and raw talent displayed by a young software firm just attempting systems integration. Yet, it also wanted the experience of an established systems integrator like Systemhouse. The result was an intense competition between the two, each wanting to top the other. For a while, Naughton's biggest challenge was keeping the competition under control. Complicating the choice is the entry of major hardware vendors into systems integration. Established independent systems integrators scoff at the notion that IBM can be a true systems integrator because it must favor its own technology, thus defeating a major feature of systems integration _ the impartiality needed to choose the best solution. IBM, naturally, does not believe that impartiality is an important criteria. ``We don't claim to be totally impartial, but we do have other strengths,'' says Gerald W. Ebker, IBM vice-president and president of the Systems Integration Division in Bethesda, Md. For instance, Ebker points to his division's knowledge of unannounced IBM products, saying there is almost always some content of undisclosed product in a systems integration project. While some observers suggest that systems integration is a passing fad, ADL's Weizer and others claim it is the wave of the future. Systems integration will last because ``technology is becoming so complex, and systems use so many different technologies that need to be married,'' Weizer says. As pressure mounts for corporate IS to leverage existing systems while capitalizing on new technologies and, at the same time, operate and maintain the daily IS functions and do it all in a cost-accountable way, information systems departments must increasingly turn to systems integrators. Gone are the days when the in-house IS department can do it all alone. By Alan Radding; Radding is a Boston-based author specializing in business and technology. <<<>>> Title : What's an integrator? Author : Alan Radding Source : CW Comm FileName: raddside Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: What exactly is a systems integrator? The label can be applied to a wide variety of computer industry organizations, from free-lance programmers to value-added resellers. Classic systems integrators, however, are usually large organizations that assume start-to-finish reponsibility for an entire systems project. The systems integrator often helps analyze the IS problem and establish solution criteria and systems objectives. The integrator then determines the best hardware platform, acquires the necessary components, acquires or develops the needed software and then makes it all work together. A classic systems integrator maintains an in-house stable of experts who are knowledgeable in every aspect of development. Today, systems integrators make up a fast-growing segment of the industry. It is a niche that, because of its value-added nature, provides some of the best profit margins _ as much as 30%. The systems integration market is growing, overall, at 10% to 20% per year and has surpassed the $8 billion mark, according to some observers. Most of the growth and generally the biggest contracts in systems integration come from the government. In the federal sector alone, systems integrators expect more than $10 billion in new systems integration projects in the next two years. By 1992, integrators suggest that the worth of projects overall in the industry worldwide will top the $15 billion mark. ALAN RADDING <<<>>> Title : VA's optical disk product Author : Alan Radding Source : CW Comm FileName: raddside Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Like many other agencies of the U.S. government, the Veterans Administration (VA), based in Washington, D.C., handles too much paper. The department serves 37 million veterans, 20 million of whom have active files. Each case has a folder for the papers related to the particular veteran's situation. The folder may be thin or it may weigh three pounds. No matter how you count it, there is a lot of paper. In 1985, the VA had outside consultants conduct a study to determine if there was a better way to handle the paper, and the resulting recommendations were that the agency explore optical disk technology. The study also suggested that the agency find a single source to design and install an optical disk system. The VA started looking for an expert to develop a pilot project. ``You have to remember, this was 1985. There were maybe 50 optical disk projects worldwide and only four vendors. No one had [in-house] expertise,'' recalls Mary Leland, deputy director of the VA's vocational rehabilitation and education service. The VA's data processing department is extremely small, staffed to handle only financial and word processing applications. For its pilot optical disk project, the VA had other constraints, too. ``We didn't want to have to change our existing systems. We wanted to be able to sit at a single terminal and call up everything,'' Leland says. The agency used a Honeywell, Inc. system for financial applications and a Wang Laboratories, Inc. word processing system. The optical disk setup would have to interface with both systems. Although the agency already had the consultants' recommendations outlining the solution, it recognized that it still could not handle the job itself. ``The VA doesn't follow technology closely. Our job is paying benefits,'' Leland explains. With the blessing of the agency's DP department, the VA went outside to find someone who could do the job. The VA chose American Management Systems, Inc. (AMS), a systems integrator and consulting firm based in Arlington, Va. ``They had done the most optical research at that time. For us to try to go out without that [type of] research would have been impossible,'' Leland says. AMS was brought into the project and worked closely with the VA's IS staff and Leland's program staff. ``AMS owns the equipment. They designed, bought and installed the system and then trained us,'' Leland notes. The optical disk system AMS brought in was from Filenet Corp. Leland was hesitant about the arrangement. There was the potential for a culture clash because of the differences between a large government bureaucracy and a sharp private-sector firm. The potential for problems, however, was quickly diffused. ``We had a lot of support from the top,'' Leland notes. With the the agency directors behind the project, the rest of the staff cooperated enthusiastically. AMS' staff also helped avoid conflicts, Leland says. They had high levels of technical skills and were sensitive to the personnel dynamics of the VA's organization. For instance, AMS did not impose a systems design on the end users. ``Rather than brief us on what we were going to get, they sat down and actually talked with the users,'' Leland explains. AMS gave the users what they wanted. The users insisted that they be able to call up a copy of the entire contents of each veteran's folder every time they needed access to any of it. AMS gave them that capability, although later studies monitoring the pilot showed that users rarely looked at more than the same five documents in evaluating claims. Until the VA gave them this capability, however, there was no way to convince users that any less would do, Leland concludes. AMS is now developing a version that brings up the five key documents first. Technically, the biggest challenge to the VA's project was the three-way integration between the Wang and Honeywell equipment and the optical disk systems. ``AMS built a protocol box to integrate three-way functionality. We couldn't have done that,'' Leland points out. Using the paper system, it used to take a VA claims representative three days at best and more often several weeks just to get the proper folder. With the pilot system, it takes less than a minute. Today, the prototype is under evaluation, and the agency will decide next year whether it will roll out in real production mode. The VA optical disk pilot system was installed in the agency's St. Louis branch on Nov. 30, 1987, two weeks behind schedule. Says Leland, ``As far as I'm concerned, that's perfection.'' ALAN RADDING <<<>>> Title : Thrift crisis drains MIS Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 1sl Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: First, the nationwide savings and loan crisis threatened MIS budgets. Now, with recent U.S. government takeovers, including 37 just last week, MIS jobs at 73 thrifts hang in the lurch. After speaking with executives from a dozen thrifts recently taken over by the government, Computerworld found MIS organizations struggling to contain costs while maintaining adequate services. Closer to their hearts, these professionals are wondering whether their institutions will be sold or liquidated with their jobs in tow. ``We have no idea what is going to happen,'' said Janice Merva, MIS manager and the sole remaining MIS employee at Westwood Savings and Loan Association in Los Angeles. She runs the thrift's IBM System/36 and manages its 25 personal computers. For now, MIS is on pins and needles while the government and potential investors work out the thrifts' fate. At the request of the Bush administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has grabbed the reins of these institutions because of their enormous losses and is now targeting more than takeover, analysts said. With little or no advance warning for thrift employees, FDIC conservators have been installed to run operations. Their mandate is to control costs, an FDIC spokesman said. Adding to MIS uncertainty is the Bush administration's undefined bailout strategy. Currently, the Senate Banking Committee is considering a bailout proposal. But until the president and Congress act, the thrifts remain in limbo. ``They can't even be sold yet,'' an FDIC spokeswoman said. ``They are insolvent until Congress approves the funding to close them.'' Despite a business-as-usual appearance at these thrifts, big changes are in store. ``The thrift still runs on a day-to-day basis, but the overriding outcome is that the thrift is either going to be sold or dissolved. And with any consolidation, a lot of jobs will be eliminated,'' said Peter Kovalski, thrifts analyst at William Securities Group, Inc. of Tampa, Fla. Kovalski said that once the FDIC steps in, one of three scenarios plays out. In rare instances, the thrift is sold to an entrepreneur, and the information systems group remains in place. More likely is the thrift's integration into a larger institution, almost guaranteeing a drastic reduction in IS staff. The last alternative, liquidation, would dissolve the IS staff entirely. ``If a thrift is classified as insolvent or close to it, I would worry and look around [for a job],'' Kovalski said. Other analysts agree that MIS jobs in the savings and loan industry are imperiled. ``If they can, the thrift will merge with a healthy one, which would have its own DP. Or they will just liquidate,'' said Michael Abrahams, a senior analyst covering the thrift industry for Bateman, Eichler, Hill Richards, Inc., a Los Angeles-based brokerage firm. Unless the thrift is located in the same state as the institution acquiring it, MIS reduction is almost standard policy, said Bob Dygert, vice-president of operating policies of North Carolina National Bank in Charlotte, N.C. ``Once we've absorbed the data center and consolidated, paring down becomes standard strategy,'' Dygert said. To be expected An MIS manager in a thrift just taken over by the FDIC looked at the situation philosophically. ``Anyone who looks at data processing as a career knows that this is the nature of the beast,'' he said, adding that he began to keep an eye open for other IS job opportunities once the FDIC stepped in. Many of these MIS professionals had already been working under tight budgets, which just got tighter. This translates into key projects being quashed and innovative ideas left untried. Anchor Savings Bank DP supervisor Mark Krebs was hoping to install a system that would automate customer service at 16 branches. ``I don't think I'll even try to throw it out,'' Krebs said, takeover, analysts said. With little or no advance warning for thrift employees, FDIC conservators have been installed to run operations. Their mandate is to control costs, an FDIC spokesman said. Adding to MIS uncertainty is the Bush administration's undefined bailout strategy. Currently, the Senate Banking Committee is considering a bailout proposal. But until the president and Congress act, the thrifts remain in limbo. ``They can't even be sold yet,'' an FDIC spokeswoman said. ``They are insolvent until Congress approves the funding to close them.'' Despite a business-as-usual appearance at these thrifts, big changes are in store. ``The thrift still runs on a day-to-day basis, but the overriding outcome is that the thrift is either going to be sold or dissolved. And with any consolidation, a lot of jobs will be eliminated,'' said Peter Kovalski, thrifts analyst at William Securities Group, Inc. of Tampa, Fla. Kovalski said that once the FDIC steps in, one of three scenarios plays out. In rare instances, the thrift is sold to an entrepreneur, and the information systems group remains in place. More likely is the thrift's integration into a larger institution, almost guaranteeing a drastic reduction in IS staff. The last alternative, liquidation, would dissolve the IS staff entirely. ``If a thrift is classified as insolvent or close to it, I would worry and look around [for a job],'' Kovalski said. Other analysts agree that MIS jobs in the savings and loan industry are imperiled. ``If they can, the thrift will merge with a healthy one, which would have its own DP. Or they will just liquidate,'' said Michael Abrahams, a senior analyst covering the thrift industry for Bateman, Eichler, Hill Richards, Inc., a Los Angeles-based brokerage firm. Unless the thrift is located in the same state as the institution acquiring it, MIS reduction is almost standard policy, said Bob Dygert, vice-president of operating policies of North Carolina National Bank in Charlotte, N.C. ``Once we've absorbed the data center and consolidated, paring down becomes standard strategy,'' Dygert said. To be expected An MIS manager in a thrift just taken over by the FDIC looked at the situation philosophically. ``Anyone who looks at data processing as a career knows that this is the nature of the beast,'' he said, adding that he began to keep an eye open for other IS job opportunities once the FDIC stepped in. Many of these MIS professionals had already been working under tight budgets, which just got tighter. This translates into key projects being quashed and innovative ideas left untried. Anchor Savings Bank DP supervisor Mark Krebs was hoping to install a system that would automate customer service at 16 branches. ``I don't think I'll even try to throw it out,'' Krebs said, preferring to wait until things settle down before proposing MIS expansion. Anchor, with $840 million in deposits, was taken over Feb. 17. In order to get approval, new projects must be absolutely essential. ``Projects now require regulatory approval from the [FDIC] conservator, and we have to have a compelling reason for the project,'' said a director of information systems for a government-controlled thrift with more than $1 billion in deposits. The savings and loan industry's failure is a sensitive subject for many thrift employees. In fact, many MIS managers contacted had been ordered by their FDIC conservator or management not to speak about their thrift's activities. Only in private will they discuss their fears. ``If I stick my neck out like that, my head is gone,'' said one MIS director seeking anonymity. ``There is a lot at stake for this institution, where public opinion is concerned.'' preferring to wait until things settle down before proposing MIS expansion. Anchor, with $840 million in deposits, was taken over Feb. 17. In order to get approval, new projects must be absolutely essential. ``Projects now require regulatory approval from the [FDIC] conservator, and we have to have a compelling reason for the project,'' said a director of information systems for a government-controlled thrift with more than $1 billion in deposits. The savings and loan industry's failure is a sensitive subject for many thrift employees. In fact, many MIS managers contacted had been ordered by their FDIC conservator or management not to speak about their thrift's activities. Only in private will they discuss their fears. ``If I stick my neck out like that, my head is gone,'' said one MIS director seeking anonymity. ``There is a lot at stake for this institution, where public opinion is concerned.'' By Douglas Barney and William Brandel; CW staff <<<>>> Title : Intel enters RISC drag ra Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 1intel$0 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: SAN FRANCISCO _ Intel Corp. grabbed the spotlight in the reduced instruction set computing arena last week with a 64-bit microprocessor that industry watchers said sets a new standard for RISC performance. Intel's I860 RISC processor, which squeezes more than a million transistors onto a single chip, drew praise from industry analysts. ``It puts minisupercomputer performance at the microprocessor level,'' said Andrew Allison, editor of ``RISC Management,'' an industry newsletter. While the chip is scheduled to ship in production quantities in the third quarter, workstations based on the I860 are not expected to become available until mid-1990. This does not appear to have dimmed enthusiasm for the technology, however. ``I think this represents the next generation,'' said Edwin Sund, a member of the personal computer support team at Weyerhaeuser Information Systems. ``We're already encroaching on the minicomputer area. With this, we'll end up blasting it away. I can't wait to see it in a system.'' IBM said it will work with Intel to develop a 32-bit bus master card for IBM's Personal System/2. Pedro Martinez, an IBM Wizard Project program manager, said the card will increase the PS/2's processing speed and provide graphics capabilities. He added that it could expand the PS/2 into computer-aided design applications. At Uniforum 1989, IBM demonstrated an Intel 80386-based PS/2 Model 80 with the Wizard card running a numerics-intensive application. IBM claims this machine runs between 13 and 14 times faster than the Scalable Processor Architecture (Sparc)-based Sun-4/260 from Sun Microsystems, Inc. It is expected to be available later this year. There is speculation that IBM may design a line of RISC workstations based on the I860. Sund said he expects IBM to take this direction. ``I think its use will be a lot broader than a coprocessor; using it as a coprocessor compromises the chip's capabilities,'' he said. ``We'll see the chip's real potential in a stand-alone architecture rather than in a stripped-down version for a 32-bit machine.'' The new microprocessor also intensified the level of rhetoric in the RISC market. According to Claude Leglise, marketing director of Intel's microprocessor division, the I860 delivers 10 million floating-point operations per second (MFLOPS) in the double-precision Linpack benchmarks, compared with four MFLOPS for Mips Computer Systems, Inc.'s RISC processor and two MFLOPS for Sun's Sparc. A 33-MHz version will be available in production quantities by the third quarter of 1989, as will samples of a 40-MHz version. Those benchmarks were characterized as misleading by Bill Keating, director of technical markets at Sun. ``This is a coprocessor,'' Keating maintained. ``In a host CPU configuration, the numbers start falling apart.'' Unisys Corp., Ing. C. Olivetti & Co., Prime Computer, Inc. and AT&T will work with Intel to develop a multiprocessor version of AT&T's as-yet-unreleased Unix System V, Release 4 for the I860 and Intel's 386 and 80486 microprocessors. A beta-test version is set to be available in the fourth quarter of this year. By Julie Pitta, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Novell puts foot down Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: portable Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: BOSTON _ Don't tread on me. Perhaps taking heed of that early revolutionary motto, Novell, Inc. teamed up with an army of systems vendors and software developers at Networld '89 Boston last week and served notice to critics that it intends to be a force in the multivendor connectivity arena. Despite the pending assault of new technologies, such as Microsoft Corp.'s OS/2 LAN Manager and IBM's OS/2 Extended Edition, Novell made clear that it does not intend to retreat, analysts said. Novell controls at least 50% of the local-area network market. As was expected, Novell unwrapped its big gun _ a portable version of its Netware network software that will transparently link proprietary host and Unix-based systems to Netware LANs [CW, Feb. 20]. The linchpin in Novell's Open Systems strategy was co-developed with Prime Computer, Inc. and NCR Corp. Prime will provide the Intel Corp. 80386 port, while NCR will tackle Motorola, Inc.'s 68000 chip. Taking a page from rival 3Com Corp.'s battle plan, Novell's Portable Netware purports to provide a scalable server architecture capable of supporting file and resource sharing between the four client branches _ Unix, OS/2, MS-DOS and Apple Computer, Inc. Macintoshes _ while talking to a range of servers and hosts. Pledge of allegiance Portable Netware has so far amassed allegiance from 23 companies _ including the likes of Northern Telecom, Inc., Intel Corp., Data General Corp., Sun Microsystems, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Unisys Corp. Support comes in the form of two wide-area links that will better tie Netware-based LANs into geographically dispersed enterprisewide networks. These products include support for up to 15 remote PCs to simultaneously access Netware resources through a single server via dial-up modems and a bridge that provides fractionalized T1 services, with speeds to 2M bit/sec. Novell also pounded out plans _ but no dates _ for Portable Netware to support standards such as Sun's Network File System and the emerging IEEE Posix standard. One critical area that remains hazy is management of these multiple-platform networks. Both Novell and its allies agreed that this area would have to be addressed, but they did not provide specifics. In the eyes of many Novell critics, the horizon has looked bleak of late for the Provo, Utah-based vendor. Users are demanding host connectivity on the one hand, while rival Microsoft's OS/2 LAN Manager has continued to rack up impressive support from IBM, HP and Digital Equipment Corp. Portable Netware is in part Novell's answer to LAN Manager/X, or HP's Unix LAN Manager, analysts agreed. Many Portable Netware supporters echoed Henry Foxwell, a Unisys spokeman, who said his company cannot afford to ignore Novell's dominance of the LAN market. Noting that ``we all know who the other camp is,'' Foxwell and others left the door open to link their systems to LAN Manager-based software if customers demand it. By Patricia Keefe, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Hackers arrested fokr all Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: spyring Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Computers have replaced cloaks and daggers in the spy game. West German investigators reportedly arrested three hackers last week for allegedly penetrating military and research computers in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan and selling passwords and other sensitive information to the Soviet Union. ``Until possibly affected components of the Department of Defense have had a chance to analyze the report, we have no reaction,'' said Jim Turner, a Pentagon spokesman. Norddeutsche Rundfunk, a television broadcasting network, reported last week that the hackers electronically entered the U.S. Department of Defense's (DOD) general data bank, known as Optimus, and systems at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. The West German television network alleged that the three hackers were recruited by the KGB in 1985. The security breaches were first discovered in 1986 by Clifford Stoll, a computer security expert at Harvard University, triggering an international investigation that led to the arrests [CW, Aug. 8, 1988]. For more than a year, Stoll assisted U.S. military intelligence in keeping tabs on one of the hackers as he repeatedly penetrated computer systems at military and research installations. By Michael Alexander, CW staff <<<>>> Title : NAS mainframe users are b Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: m6brief1 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: NAS mainframe users are breathing easier after a joint venture between Hitachi and EDS rescued the mainframe maker from an uncertain fate. Memorex Telex was dumped after missing two deadlines in its bid to buy NAS following delays in obtaining financing. But Hitachi and EDS are expected to bring financial muscle and distribution to the table, and buyers may now find more expansive offerings from EDS' systems integration business. Page 1. What would you do if the government took over your IS site? For MIS professionals at savings and loan organizations, it has meant stalled plans, canceled contracts and an uncertain future. Many are looking for jobs elsewhere. Page 1. <<<>>> Title : Abbott Labs puts its corp Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: m6brief2 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Abbott Labs puts its corporate records on-line and junks a half-million index cards in the process. The benefits: reduced storage space, more flexible retrieval and faster response. Page 25. You don't need a mainframe any more. That's what many fast-growing firms are finding, and they're willing to consider staying within minicomputer lines, switching to Unix-based systems or adding application-specific ones. Page 23. New interoperability options should emerge from a flurry of agreements between systems makers and network vendors. DEC and Apollo have joined forces in a deal aimed at distributed applications development, page 12, while 3Com and Hewlett-Packard are already displaying the fruits of their linkup labors announced two weeks ago, page 12. Caught in the open systems squeeze, Novell fought back last week by mustering an army of third-party support for its new portable version of Netware, which opens more Novell options to multivendor sites, page 141. How much planning is too much? The federal government thinks it has overplanned systems purchases in the past and is revamping policies to emphasize bite-size procurements. Page 87. ``A systems integrator wants you to give him a check and let him run. That's insanity,'' says one IS director about the boom in systems integration. Just because contractors can do the job doesn't mean you should always use one. IS needs to keep a firm hand on the rudder, even when the systems integrator says he can do it all, page 99. Lucrative career options in systems integration beckon MIS veterans, but some recruiters fret that the IS pros don't know how to sell services, page 122. Managing programmers means walking a thin line in the age of ``Theory Z'' management. This new approach stresses shared responsibility for software quality. Page 19. Profile: Susan Mersereau, head of Weyerhaeuser Information Systems (WIS) runs the information systems arm of the $7 billion forest products giant. In addition to running a decentralized MIS organization, WIS serves outside clients, including Chevron Corp., that account for about 15% of WIS' business. Page 79. Buying software developed by other users may be hazardous to your health. That's often where you can get the most functionality for niche packages, but you may risk a long-term lack of support. Page 131. Bargains await IBM customers as third parties scramble to match its service moves. Service providers are luring buyers with more flexible plans and less paperwork, while AS/400 memory makers last week chopped prices by as much as 40% before their products were even announced. Page 140. Expert systems are something special at American Airlines. The organization is working on knowledge-based programs to help avoid overbooking and reroute planes in bad weather. Its frequent-flier records are also being moved to image processing. Page 8. <<<>>> Title : Marching down Author : Nell Margolis Source : CW Comm FileName: 36stock Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Erratic weather in the air and on the Street marked the beginning of March last week. The debut of Novell, Inc.'s much-publicized Portable Netware product was well received, but analysts' skittishness over the probable impact on earnings of the company's phaseout from the hardware market dampened Netware's parade. Novell stock closed Thursday at 34 , down 1 points. Competitors 3Com Corp. and Microsoft Corp., on the other hand, benefited from renewed interest in micro-to-minicomputer connectivity. 3Com picked up 1 points to close at 28 . Microsoft briefed analysts on its plans for the coming year and sent them home in an upbeat frame of mind: Its stock rose 3 points to a 60 Thursday close. With market observers continuing to question the soundness of recent corporate strategic moves, Apple Computer, Inc. continued downward, losing an additional point to close on Thursday at 35. Intel's powerful new reduced instruction set computing chip boosted its stock 1 points to 26 . Storage Technology Corp. announced a 58% jump in net income for its year ended in December; its stock closed at 2 , up of a point. NELL MARGOLIS <<<>>> Title : Corrections Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: correcti Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: The following details on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s equity stake in 3Com Corp. were omitted from the report of the two companies' alliance [CW, Feb. 27]: The alliance was anchored by an initial HP purchase of up to 5% of 3Com's outstanding stock. According to 3Com Chairman William Krause, HP can purchase another 5% of 3Com stock. However, through ``volume purchase of 3Com products, HP can earn the right to purchase up to 10%,'' he added. As part of its performance-monitor line [CW, Feb. 13], Computer Associates International, Inc. offers these tools: CA-Jars, which monitors batch/on-line activity in IBM VSE, MVS and VM environments; CA-Jars/CICS, which monitors CICS in VSE and MVS environments; CA-FastDASD, which monitors direct-access storage device activity in VM and MVS environments; CA-ISS/Three, which monitors system work load capacity in MVS and other environments; CA-Mazdamon, which monitors VTAM, IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA) and non-SNA activity in all MVS environments; and CA-Unipack/PMA, which monitors MVS or VSE and related subsystems. Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. makes minisupercomputers, not supercomputers, as was earlier reported [CW, Jan. 30]. <<<>>> Title : Federal midrange market Author : Mitch Betts Source : CW Comm FileName: fedtrend Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: AT&T got some good press last year when it won a coveted U.S. Air Force minicomputer contract, but Digital Equipment Corp. actually has been the most successful vendor in selling midrange systems to the federal government. According to Computer Intelligence, a La Jolla, Calif., market research firm, DEC has a 49% share of the federal market for midrange systems, far ahead of IBM's 13% share and Data General Corp.'s 11% share in that category. Following DG are Wang Laboratories, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Unisys Corp. For this study, DEC's midrange is defined as including all Microvaxes and VAXs, except for the Microvax 2000 workstations. The IBM midrange includes the 4300 and 9370 models of the 370 architecture, as well as the Application System/400 and System/34, 36 and 38 minicomputers. Overall, the government is by far the single largest buyer of VAX systems. About 9% of all VAX and Microvax systems in the U.S. are installed at federal sites, Computer Intelligence reported. The government's VAX buying plans are similar to the commercial sector's, except that the VAX 8000 series figures more heavily in its buying plans. Federal agencies reported that the VAX 8000 series will make up 35% of their planned VAX purchases, said David Eulitt, a Computer Intelligence analyst. The defense agencies account for 42% of the federal VAX sites, the biggest user being the U.S. Navy. But DEC's presence there could wane as military units begin to purchase AT&T's 3B2 minicomputers under the Air Force contract AT&T won last year [CW, Nov. 7, 1988]. The Air Force estimates that military agencies may buy as many as 21,000 units under the AT&T contract. But the contract is what the government calls an indefinite quantity contract _ essentially an approved shopping list _ so it remains to be seen how many AT&T systems are actually bought. It appears that DEC's success in selling to the government will continue, Computer Intelligence said. Last May, for example, DEC won an $80 million contract to support the 1990 census with 460 Microvax processing centers and 13 VAX processing centers. MITCH BETTS <<<>>> Title : Inside lines Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: liner306 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Byte heard 'round the world. Apple will unveil a scaled-down version of its Motorola 68030 Macintosh IIX _ to be called the Mac IICX _ on March 7 in the U.S. and in satellite transmissions broadcast here, there and everywhere. The system will also receive gala treatment that day at the Hannover Faire CeBIT '89 [CW, Feb. 6]. The modular-style Mac IICX will be a three-slot version _ half the number of slots offered on other Mac II models _ in a smaller footprint. It will be offered in three configurations: a single floppy version with 1M byte of RAM priced at about $4,500, a second configuration with 1M byte of RAM and a 40M-byte hard drive for about $5,000 and a high-end version with 4M bytes of RAM and an 80M-byte hard drive for slightly less than $7,000. Extended update. For those tracking IBM's road to a database server, here's the latest. Remote Data Services, which allows client workstations to access shared OS/2 Extended Edition databases, is on track for an early fall shipment, according to one IBM Extended maven. IBM is also planning to release some benchmarks from an independent testing lab that show off the Extended's performance. Meanwhile, bulletin boards are abuzz with word of clones that won't run Extended. The word is that BIOS products from smaller vendors can't cut the Extended Edition mustard. IBM, however, maintains that it has not done anything with Extended that would cause problems for true compatibles. Extending DOS-dom. Lotus is expected to detail its DOS Extender approach later this month, which allows its bulky 1-2-3 Release 3.0 to run under MS-DOS as long as you've got an IBM Personal Computer AT or better. Meanwhile, an upgrade of 1-2-3 Release 2.01, dubbed Release 2.2 and aimed at low-end PCs, moves closer to beta status. Those who have seen the program report a clean, well-mannered program with rudimentary linking capabilities, better memory management and the ability to store macros in separate files while maintaining that legendary Release 2.01 performance. Open and closed. X/Open's board met last Friday to vote on a request by the Open Software Foundation to become a member of the standards consortium. While hoping to expand participation by accepting end-user organizations and software developers as board members, X/Open officials have downplayed the possibility of either Unix International or OSF joining the group. According to a source close to X/Open, the consortium would have to bend the rules a little to accept OSF, a development organization. Supermini slump. The latest company to feel the pinch of the soft minisupercomputer market is San Diego-based Scientific Computer Systems, which has suspended its efforts in that area and scaled back its manufacturing and sales departments. While the company says it will continue to fulfill its maintenance obligations, officials said it will concentrate more of its efforts in its Vectornet division. Will the real interface please shut up? Both Northern Telecom and AT&T have promised their users imminent delivery of software links that will let them dial up a variety of computer databases and applications from their private branch exchanges (PBX). Those links will most likely run on Integrate Services Digital Network but will only work with each vendor's own PBX. Both vendors claim to support a true computer-to-PBX standard, but each is gathering allies for its own version of the interface in the meantime. In the ``this sounds familiar'' department, a source close to Ashton-Tate has sniffed out a few problems with Dbase IV 1.1; that's the important version that's supposed to act as a front end for SQL Server. Apparently, technical difficulties with the SQL implementation and bug fixes make a spring shipment darn near impossible, and our sources say summer or fall is more likely. As soon as any beta-test site knows better, call in the details to the hot line, 800-343-6474 or 508-879-0700 or call our new bulletin board at 508-626-0165, and News Editor Pete Bartolik will make sure the news troops give Ashton-Tate an even break. <<<>>> Title : Service firms try to outd Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: service Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Third-party maintenance providers are gearing up to outdo IBM in its recently announced strategy to provide more simplified and flexible service plans. Sorbus, Inc. plans to introduce a revised contract structure in a few weeks that will cut the associated paperwork by 50% to 60%, according to Vice-President of Marketing Thomas Richards. TRW, Inc. announced last week that it had just launched two service options on a trial basis. The plans extend the methods by which customers can set up payments and the number of service calls they anticipate. The technical services division of Control Data Corp. is considering a plan to market a personal computer-based direct-access storage device monitor similar to the Service Director IBM announced along with its simplified strategy, according to James Paster, marketing manager of the company's IBM business segment. The competitive moves will be welcomed by customers, who have been searching for ways to make maintenance administration easier, said Marnie Phillips, an analyst at The Ledgeway Group in Lexington, Mass. ``As far as I can see, IBM is making it easier, but the third parties are keeping close. It's a chess game,'' said George Tabback, corporate director of information systems at Ingersoll-Rand Co. in Woodcliff Lake, N.J. Ingersoll-Rand currently uses both CDC and IBM as service providers, and Tabback said both are ``pushing each other to do a good job and make [mine] an easier job.'' The first move In January, IBM launched Serviceplan, which restructured its maintenance offerings under one program. The company did away with multiple contracts to simplify customers' work loads and added new options such as estimated billing to allow customers more flexibility in putting together service packages. Third-party providers contacted last week said they are not responding directly to IBM's announcement. Instead, they claimed, they have all been working toward more flexible and understandable maintenance programs for some time. In fact, some third-party providers such as the computer service division of General Electric Co. said they have been offering one-page contracts for years. At Sorbus, a project was launched last year to determine how the company could provide a more flexible service package, Richards said. One outgrowth of this was a simplified contract, which is now being finalized. More to come Richards said Sorbus will continue to evaluate what other options are worth adding to its lineup. The firm tends to approach options on an individual-customer basis rather than make them standard offerings as IBM did with Serviceplan, he said. Estimated billing, one of the new pieces of Serviceplan, would allow a customer to reach an estimated set price up front for a year's worth of service. Sorbus offers estimated billing if a customer requests it, but it is not a standard offering, Richards said. Thomas Ewing, vice-president of operations at TRW, said the simplified approach is one ``we've all been after.'' TRW has had a strategy similar to IBM's in the works for some time, he said. ``We've got some umbrella programs [like Serviceplan], but our approach is to have the customer tell us what they need and we'll find it for you,'' Ewing said. By Rosemary Hamilton, CW staff <<<>>> Title : AT&T extends users' reach Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: attstars Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: BOSTON _ Unix ringmaster AT&T took a belated leap onto the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol bandwagon last week, rolling out two TCP/IP products for users of its Starlan networks. AT&T also expanded its electronic mail support to three competing networks, unwrapped a version of Informix Software, Inc.'s Informix for Starlan and repackaged and renamed its Starlan server software, now called Stargroup. The goal behind these announcements _ summarized below _ is to enable AT&T users to build distributed computing systems that will reach well beyond the confines of Starlan work groups: A program was announced that will enable MS-DOS users on Starlan networks to access an estimated 140 host systems that support TCP/IP. TCP Access Program (TAP) reportedly will allow users to retain access to client-server applications when switching between the TCP/IP and Open Systems Interconnect worlds. The gateway product resides on the server, supporting dual protocol stacks and the ability to bridge to another work group via CCITT X.25. Informix unveiled Informix-Net, Stargroup-compatible software that allows users to share and manipulate data across networks and multiple machines. This will minimize network traffic and improve efficiency. AT&T's PMX/Starmail now runs on network software from 3Com Corp., IBM and 10Net Communications, Inc. A development agreement was formulated to produce a single Novell, Inc. Netware-compatible driver that supports AT&T's entire Starlan family. Users reportedly can run TAP on either AT&T's Unix-based 3B2 minicomputers or its 6386 Work Group System personal computers, gaining access to host features and resources located on Stargroup and TCP/IP networks _ regardless of the operating systems of the host or client. The new Netware driver provides an alternative for Netware customers who want to take advantage of AT&T's Premises Distribution System network cabling, AT&T said. Despite the driver support, AT&T was not among the midrange vendors that lined up to support Novell's Portable Netware last week (see story page 141). Instead, the company has licensed OS/2 LAN Manager from Novell rival Microsoft Corp. and will incorporate it into Stargroup, its existing Unix server product. By Patricia Keefe, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Apollo, DEC to build on N Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: rpcally Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: SAN FRANCISCO _ Joining forces against the common enemy, Digital Equipment Corp. and Apollo Computer, Inc. have agreed to develop distributed application systems based on the remote procedure-call component of Apollo's Network Control System. Under the terms of the agreement, announced here at last week's Uniforum 1989, the companies will work together to add functionality to Apollo's remote procedure calls. They will then implement the result in their own distributed application systems, according to Gail Daniels, DEC's director of local-area network marketing. Remote procedure calls are a key element of a distributed application architecture because they allow different parts of an application to be assigned on a dynamic basis to whatever processor is best suited to handle the work, industry sources said. Users want this single-system image so that they can run an application without worrying about what system or systems it resides on, said Anthony Friscia, president of Advanced Manufacturing Research, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. Implementing Apollo's offering, commonly considered the most functional on the market, should help DEC keep ahead of rivals such as Sun Microsystems, Inc. and IBM in terms of providing a distributed application platform, but DEC's endorsement is unlikely to help Apollo overtake Sun's lead, Friscia said. DEC and Apollo also plan to submit the enhanced specifications to standards bodies such as the Open Software Foundation and possibly the International Standards Organization (ISO), Daniels said. DEC and Apollo's joint work will have a better chance of being seriously considered by the ISO because, only last week, that organization decided not to adopt a remote procedure-call document that had been proposed as an Open Systems Interconnect standard. It will take at least two years for another such specification to get through the formal ISO standards approval process, according to Jim Quigley, a Hewlett-Packard Co. engineer who participated in the ISO subcommittee. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Dangerfield factor Author : Nell Margolis Source : CW Comm FileName: mycolumn Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Bad news for the computer industry: The Academy Awards nomination list is out, and once again, MIS made a poor showing. In fact, not to put too fine a line on it, information systems folks and themes were a total no-show among the lists of possible winners in the major categories. There's a reason for this, of course. There were no Best Actor or Actress nominations for anyone starring in the role of an MIS director because nobody played one in the movies this past year. The number of films that took place in or around the world of commercially applied technology was on the low side _ zero, I believe, is the applicable number _ so Best Picture and Best Director were similarly foreclosed. Best song? Let's not get ridiculous. The message is sad but clear: It isn't cool to be a techie in America. What? Not cool? Academy Awards? She's kidding, right? Right. But barely. Unless this year is different from the past few, technology will, of course, be honored in April by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There will be a slew of awards for sound, special effects, animation and a host of other technological achievements. Behind the scenes, the movie industry is, in fact, highly technological. But up front, on the screen, where style is set and dreams begun, tech is a four-letter word. It isn't just in the movies. The same week that saw the Academy Award nominations also brought me the following reminders of the regard in which the computer industry is held: Vanity Fair, another notori ous chronicler of Cool, published a review of a first novel that is receiving a fair amount of critical acclaim at the moment. The review revealed the book's author to be an ex-computer industry reporter for The Wall Street Journal who turned to fiction when she realized that, one, she spent her days asking rude questions about ``stuff I never understood anyway,'' and two, her babysitter out-earned her. A new novel by another well-regarded young writer describes computer camp as a place where unlovely and unloved teenage outcasts can enjoy, among even the sorrier of their peers, the popularity they were denied until June and will be denied again come September. As an art project, a group of sixth graders at a prestigious private school in Cambridge, Mass. _ turf on which the occasional techie has been spotted _drew life-size portraits of themselves as they expected to be in 20 years. The gallery of finished works featured exactly _ count 'em _ the same number of computer technologists as did this year's list of Best Motion Picture nominees. All right, so maybe it isn't cool to be a techie in America. So what? So this: It is incredibly cool to be a techie in Japan. Lest citing the likes of Vanity Fair and the fiction shelves at the local library offend anyone's sense of seriousness, does the Harvard Business School make the cut? That's where I first heard that one of the major factors threatening the U.S. competitive position in the rapidly forming global marketplace is the fact that it isn't cool to be a techie here. I went to the B-School in 1985 to interview a leading voice on the subject of how and whether the U.S. could regain its leading edge in international commerce and technology. What he told me, of course, could fill a book. (It has _ his.) One of the easiest and best things our president can do to boost our competitiveness, he said, would be to establish an extremely prestigious award to be given annually for an achievement in engineering. Make it a gold medal or statuette, he said. Hold the ceremony at the White House. Give it major media coverage. Build it into a household phrase like ``Nobel Prize'' or even ``Academy Award.'' And do it soon, he said, because we need it yesterday. Why? Because we desperately require quality engineers tomorrow if we want to be a technological world leader, and we're not going to get them as long as it's not cool to be a techie in America. In Japan, he noted, engineers are among the prestige elite. A teenager who aspires to become one is considered savvy; an adult who has already become one is considered enviable. Question: How do you say ``geek'' in Japanese? Answer: You don't. An overnight about-face in American consciousness is not a possibility, the Harvard professor said. The establishment of an award, on the other hand, is. OK, so maybe the Academy Award idea is reaching a bit. We're probably not going to see Dustin Hoffman starring as Brain Man in next year's list. We're not going to flock to the mall to see Tom Hanks as an Application System/400 developer in Big: The IBM Story. And when we see Bull Durham on the marquee, it's not going to be about a French-based computer company moving its U.S. headquarters to North Carolina. Not yet. But maybe it's time to get started on the Nobel-like prize in engineering. By Nell Margolis; Margolis is Computerworld's senior editor, computer industry. <<<>>> Title : Smart move at Apollo Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: mig Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: It looks good on paper. Apollo Computer, Inc. is heating up its marketing efforts by increasing the responsibilities of recently appointed Worldwide Marketing Vice-President John Migliore. Apollo broadened Migliore's title and power base last week to include North American sales efforts as well as worldwide marketing. Migliore, a former Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. and Texas Instruments, Inc. executive, was brought aboard late last year after Apollo, already bypassed in the workstation market by Sun Microsystems, Inc., watched Digital Equipment Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. further erode its share of the market it pioneered. The firm has been repeatedly slammed by industry observers for its marketing weakness. The Migliore hire won praise from analysts who saw it as a move in the right direction for Apollo. Last week's expansion of his territory is a further move in the same smart direction, said Robert Herwick, an analyst at Hambrecht & Quist, Inc. Is it enough and in time? Last week's move, Herwick said, ``at least shows that Apollo is ready to put serious money behind marketing.'' What the actor will do with the new script, he said, remains to be seen. By William Brandel, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Abbott stems record overf Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: abbott Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. _ Keeping track of the documents and records of a $4 billion company is not an easy task, especially when they fill up a large warehouse as they do at Abbott Laboratories, Inc. Abbott's corporate records department recently completed a six-year project to replace 500,000 3-by-5 index cards with an automated text-retrieval system to locate and manage its records. Information Dimensions, Inc.'s Basis text management software running on a Wang Laboratories, Inc. VS 100 provides the solution. There is no plan to store those documents on-line, according to Cindy Strowig, manager of corporate records, because the current storage cost per foot is so low that it would not be cost-effective. However, the indexing and tracking of the documents is critical to almost all areas at Abbott, which collectively issues about 30,000 requests for stored records annually. Quick access to records containing corporate and government regulatory information is critical to the pharmaceutical giant. Boxes on boxes The corporate records department receives documents, often by the boxful, after their ``active'' life in other departments is over. The department is then responsible for storing and indexing these documents for retrieval if necessary. In addition to the 28,000-square-foot warehouse, Abbott maintains 2,000 square feet of storage on-site. Eight workers staff the warehouse to retrieve the precisely stored documents on request. Under the old paper system, records were alphabetized and cross-referenced, but employees had to wade through a mountain of indexed material to find the information they were looking for. The index cards were kept in triplicate, and the physical card file grew so large that it was becoming difficult to maintain, Strowig said. Thus, the department knew it had to automate. Because of the volume and variety of information the system needs to accommodate _ an index could range anywhere from two words to three screens _ variable field lengths were required. In addition, a three- to five-second response time was targeted, and perhaps most important _ Abbott demanded ease of use and maintenance. The corporate records department wanted to be able to support the system internally rather than involving MIS. The system also had to be inexpensive. The department considered offerings from IBM, Wang and independent software providers, as well as a possible internal MIS development effort. Trial and error After implementing Wang's Alliance software package, the department found that it could not support the volumes required. Abbott then heard about and started using Basis, a text information management system running the already-installed Wang hardware. Within three months, using an outside data entry firm, more than 140,000 indexes were converted into two databases. Strowig joked that the staff made a bonfire of the index cards to celebrate. With the Basis package, the department has flexibility in defining fields and can now search for a record based on several criteria rather than by department number as with the old system. The system is meeting the ease-of-use and support requirements as well. Many of the record department's 21 employees are entry-level. ``Most of our new employees aren't familiar with computers, and some start without any keyboard skills at all. But no one has trouble using Basis,'' Strowig said. The department handles its own updates and changes and has one full-time, nontechnical staff member dedicated to the maintenance of the database. The automated index system led to significant savings, Strowig said. She measured one function, the destruction order process, which determines the useful life of a document and when it is scheduled to be destroyed. This process used to take two people two months to complete, Strowig said, but it now takes six hours. ``And this is only one small part of what we do,'' she said. Six databases have been created containing information on each document that indexes its contents and location. The databases are grouped by areas such as product information, government submissions for product approval and operating records. Right now, the corporate records department inputs and maintains the system for all departments. But in the future, Strowig hopes that each department can input and maintain information on its own stored documents. Information on doc- uments can be loaded before they are actually received for storage so that active ones can be tracked as well. Strowig estimates that no additional staff will be required by these departments because they already maintain manual index files for the documents while they are active. So far, only one of corporate record's customers has gone on-line. The hospital products group now directly loads information into the database itself. Security features built into the software assure that only hospital products records can be accessed by that department. Another future goal is to link the Basis system with the department's Wang word processing and electronic mail software, also accessed via Wang PCs and dumb terminals. By Amy Cortese, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Systems Industries fills Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: drive Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: MILPITAS, Calif. _ Systems Industries (SI) made a strong pitch for the lucrative Digital Equipment Corp. Vaxcluster peripherals market recently with the rollout of a series of storage subsystems and high-capacity disk drives. Last week, SI unveiled the Shadow series data storage subsystem, which allows on-line fault-tolerant protection of disk-based data for Microvaxes. The Micro Power Pac Shadow series offers up to 1.2G bytes of data storage per subsystem, the firm said, and makes DEC HSC-style shadowing available on the Q-bus using 5 -in. disk drives. The series is slated for second-quarter availability and will cost from $22,900 for a two-drive SI56 model to $52,000 for a four-drive SI57 model. The announcement comes on the heels of the recent introduction of a high-capacity disk drive that SI officials said bests the storage capacity of DEC's RA90 drive by more than 42%. The SI95C disk drive reportedly can provide more than 13.5G bytes of on-line storage per cabinet when configured with the maximum eight drives, the supplier of DEC-compatible mass storage systems said. It is offered in 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-drive configurations with respective formatted capacities of 3.4G, 6.9G, 10.3G and 13.7G bytes, the firm said. The drive will be available in the second quarter and will sell for $217,000 for a full eight-drive, 13.5G-byte configuration, including warranty and installation, company officials said. By James Daly, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Pact shares HP magneto-op Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hardbits Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Applied Magnetics Corp. signed a deal with Hewlett-Packard Co. to use certain HP patents and expertise relating to magneto-optical recording heads. Applied Magnetics is currently developing a line of optical recording heads. Alliant Computer Systems Corp. said Creare, Inc.'s Fluent/BFC. fluid dynamics software has been tailored for its parallel-processing systems. McDonnell Douglas Information Systems Co. expanded its Digital Equipment Corp. VAX maintenance service to include the VAX 8000, VAX 3000 series and the Vaxstation 2000 series. The additions mean McDonnell Douglas now services all VAX systems on the market. Meanwhile, DEC announced a new release of its free on-line product information ordering service, which it calls The Electronic Store. The company said Version 2 boasts a faster response time than the previous version. It has a new menu that was designed to get users to the information they need more quickly. The Electronic Store was first introduced in 1984. It requires a 1,200 or 2,400 bit/ sec. modem and a VT100-compatible terminal. <<<>>> Title : High-growth options incre Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: trend3 Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Not too many years ago, if a medium-size business wanted to grow up to be a big business, it had to grow into a mainframe architecture _ most commonly the IBM 370 family. But as Unix moves into ever more powerful configurations and several proprietary architectures broach the low end of mainframe power, users on a growth path are finding new alternatives to being forced into the 370 canyon. Users are viewing various options such as IBM's own Application System/400 midrange systems, Unix systems and the use of application-specific systems. ``Those who don't have to buy an IBM 3090 [mainframe] are avoiding going to a mainframe environment,'' said Dale Kutnick, president of The Meta Group, a Westport, Conn., consulting firm. Companies that know they will never break into the Fortune 500 have no reason to go with 370 architecture, Kutnick said. ``In the past, if you wanted to go beyond a certain ceiling, to break through you had to go to 370 architecture,'' agreed Peter Burris, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based International Data Corp. (IDC). He said he would not bet on whether the segment choosing non-370 architecture will grow faster than those that remain with mainframes, ``but there are a lot of people rethinking their basic information architecture.'' Vendors are increasingly offering to midrange users computers that can grow with their needs. Examples include the IBM AS/400 series and Unix-based systems whose makers claim performances of up to 140 million instructions per second (MIPS). Although reduced instruction set computing MIPS reportedly do not accomplish the same amount of work that traditional architecture MIPS deliver _ such as those of IBM _ a 100 MIPS-plus proprietary architecture machine is on the horizon from Tandem Computers, Inc. Unix vendors, Digital Equipment Corp. with its proprietary architecture and Tandem are said to be making great strides toward nabbing people from the mainframe market. Kutnick maintained that IBM is not able to keep midrange people happy with its 370 option. ``IBM is holding its base but is not increasing it; otherwise they'd sell more 9370s,'' he said, estimating the company has sold only 8,000 9370s. Anthem chooses AS/400 Earl Mederios was contemplating moving Anthem Electronic, Inc.'s applications from its IBM System/38 Models 700 and 40 to the 370 environment or a Tandem system last year. The semiconductor and subsystems distributor decided to do neither. ``We have a huge investment in applications based on custom code,'' said Mederios, director of the San Jose, Calif.-based company's information systems. ``Then, out came the AS/400. We could get some 50% more horsepower without massive conversion.'' He said his company was expecting information systems needs to grow at 25% per year and he expects the AS/400 to support that growth. Mederios noted that a mainframe would cost three times as much as the AS/400 Models 40 and 60 he expects to install this month and would demand a larger support staff. In addition to the option of staying within a product line, as Anthem is doing, there is a trend toward adding application-specific CPUs as needed. For instance, Bell Atlantic Corp. has plenty of mainframes, but for pilot projects allowing subscribers to access libraries of information in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., the company chose single-application midrange systems. Managers for the two pilots, called ``gateway services,'' chose two different fault-tolerant hardware platforms to deliver nearly the same program. ``We didn't go out looking for a hardware platform on its own,'' said Ken Hand, gateway implementation product manager at Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. Hand chose a Tandem CLX primarily because the software he liked ran on Tandem's Guardian operating system. Eventually, Hand may even go with a Unix system, he said. In Philadelphia, Bob Hunsberger, Bell of Pennsylvania's associate staff manager, put his gateway service on an IBM System/88. Like Hand, Hunsberger said his decision on the hardware was software-driven, although he chose a different software package. Just as Hand kept his mind open to Unix systems after sinking money into proprietary architecture, others are keeping the Unix option in mind. Mike Prince, data processing manager at Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse, Inc. in Burlington, N.J., bought a Unix-based Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. parallel processor as an application-specific device and ended up replacing his former Honeywell, Inc. mainframe with three Sequent computers. Prince said he evaluated the 370 architecture but that because he had decided to use an Oracle Corp. relational database, the 370 route cost ``so much more in terms of transactions per second.'' Unix is also gaining ground in start-up situations. ``You can take a basic Unix operating system and shape it for development,'' said Allan Baumgartner, an analyst at San Jose, Calif.-based Dataquest, Inc. ``Now one individual can understand Unix in six months vs. needing an entire team to understand MVS/ESA.'' If anything will steer midrange users into the 370 architecture, it will be deep discounts in the used market. ``That's IBM's secret weapon,'' Baumgartner said. He maintained that IBM will keep its grip on the midrange market because a moderate user can ``comfortably stay five to seven years behind leading technology and spend only one-fourth of the dollars.'' Other analysts countered that cut-rate prices on used equipment are not enough when a user considers the overhead associated with mainframes. The low price of the hardware is ``only part of the equation,'' said Steve Josselyn, an IDC analyst. By J.A. Savage, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Nixdorf tok bundle OSF/Mo Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: m6soft Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Nixdorf Computer Corp. recently said it will offer OSF/Motif as a bundled component of its Unix-based systems family, Targon. Nixdorf, a founding member of the Open Software Foundation (OSF), claimed its license agreement to build applications based on OSF/Motif is the first ever signed. Quadratron Systems, Inc. and Oracle Corp. said they recently signed an agreement under which they will exchange technology in order to integrate the products of both of the companies. The goal will be for Quadratron and Oracle users to extract data from Oracle databases and use it as editable text in Quadratron applications. Quadratron makes office automation software to run under AT&T's Unix operating system. Interleaf, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., said it recently signed a volume license agreement with Sun Microsystems, Inc. that will allow Sun to install unlimited copies of Interleaf TPS Core software in any of its facilities worldwide. TPS is designed as a networked product mainly for full-time authors within a distributed publishing environment. Bachman Information Systems, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., has been designated an authorized application specialist for DB2 by IBM. Bachman will work with IBM to help customers use DB2 through utilizing Bachman/Database Administrator for DB2. Data General Corp. in Westboro, Mass., said it recently signed an independent software vendor agreement with TLD Systems Ltd. in Torrance, Calif. Under terms of the agreement, TLD will supply the Ada/1750A Compiler System for use with the entire DG Eclipse MV line of computer systems. Pricing for the DG systems ranges from $5,000 on a low-end system to $90,000 on an Eclipse MV/40000 HA Model 4. <<<>>> Title : Knowledgeware heading tow Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: kware Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: The computer-aided software engineering (CASE) platform of tomorrow will be a personal computer running OS/2. That is the future that Knowledgeware, Inc. is planning on, the company told users at its annual user group meeting last week. ``We believe the acceptance of OS/2 will be more rapid than most think,'' said Terry McGowan, Knowledgeware's president and chief operating officer. ``OS/2 and SAA are both required. The OS/2 Presentation Manager will be the user interface.'' In choosing this direction, Knowledgeware is apparently moving in step with IBM, which is sending out signals that OS/2-based CASE workstations will come into wide use, working interactively with host systems. ``1989 will see a move to cooperative processing,'' said IBM Vice-President Earl Wheeler. ``OS/2 Extended will work with a host-based repository. The workstation will be the focal point of application development.'' McGowan vowed support for IBM's repository as well, saying that Knowledgeware's encyclopedia is constructed in the same manner that IBM's repository will be, with planning, analysis, design and construction of applications all interacting with a common data store. Wheeler declared that IBM itself will force in-house developers to migrate to the new platform. ``Within IBM, all developers and programmers will have a PS/2 within a year,'' Wheeler said. Other offerings announced Knowledgeware also announced several products at the conference: Release 5.0 of Information Engineering Workbench/Workstation (IEW/WS), a microcomputer-based CASE product, which can support reengineering of existing applications into a CASE environment. Availability of IEW/Gamma, a mainframe-based application generator. Early support in the second quarter for the IEW/Construction Workstation, a microcomputer-based code generator. The conference was attended by some 800 users, an increase from 400 a year ago. Knowledgeware claimed it now has 11,400 products installed worldwide at 1,300 customer accounts. By Stanley Gibson, CW staff <<<>>> Title : In brief Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 36week Date : Mar 13, 1989 Text: Getting them all together . . . Networking and telecommunications player Lachman Associates, Inc. and Kodak subsidiary Interactive Systems Corp., a purveyor of Unix products to Intel Corp. 80386-based systems users, are betting on the coupling of Interactive's distribution channels with the strength of Lachman's on-site services to boost the merged company into major-contender status in the Unix and open systems markets. . . . and together Artificial intelligence pioneer Tecknowledge, Inc. and privately held Cimflex Corp. are combining their names as well as their missions: Cimflex Tecknowledge Corp., to be headquartered in Pittsburgh, will focus on knowledge-based factory automation applications. . . . and together Cambridge, Mass.-based project management and maintenance software developer Project Software Development, Inc. and Ann Arbor, Mich.-based ADP Network Services' APECS 8000 project management software line. With the APECS 8000 acquisition, Project Software Development makes its first move into Unix. And then come the offspring In the wake of major customer Unisys Corp.'s February announcement of inventory adjustments, multiprocessing computer maker Arix Corp. announced a new subsidiary, Imix Corp. Based in Washington, D.C., Imix will develop Unix-based image management systems to market to systems integrators for use in turnkey packages. The birth of Imix, Arix Chief Executive Officer Gene Manno said, is a step toward weaning Arix from its dependence on one or two customers. Back to black for fiber optics groundbreaker Fiber optics pioneer Fibronics International, Inc. last week announced $901,100 net income for the year ended Dec. 31. This marks Fibronics' first annual profit since the company went public in 1983. According to a company spokesman, the return to the right side of the balance sheet could be a signal that last year's move of bringing in President John Hale to turn around Fibronics' flagging fortunes is working. <<<>>> Title : SAA interface to take OSI Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: ibmpic Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: IBM recently put some beef into its commitment to integrate networking standards under its Systems Application Architecture (SAA) umbrella by adding an OSI twist to its distributed processing strategy. But there are a few gaps to fill and a few independent vendors to woo before users can start lining up to buy real products. Last month, IBM told a group of consultants that it plans to provide Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) support for its Common Programming Interface for Communications. The current interface is a consistent set of commands for invoking LU6.2 network functions, which provide ``source-code portability'' for applications across all four SAA environments: MVS, VM, Application System/400 and OS/2 Extended Edition, according to IBM OSI Systems Manager Donald Holtz. By writing to the interface, a developer can implement one half of an application on an SAA ``front end,'' such as a Personal System/2, and the other half on a ``back end,'' such as an AS/400, and have the two communicate via LU6.2, Holtz said. The user could also migrate either half of the application to another system _ from an AS/400 to a 370, for example _ without having to rewrite the interface, he added. Extending the communications interface to support OSI would effectively create an IBM-blessed software interface for writing applications that combine IBM and non-IBM systems. On one hand, IBM may have some trouble generating support among other systems vendors and independent software houses, given that its new interface already has several rivals, including the existing LU6.2 Advanced Program-to-Program Communications (APPC) protocols, noted David Passmore, a partner at Ernst & Whinney subsidiary Network Strategies, Inc. APPC is reportedly more difficult to work with than the new interface _ roughly analogous to assembler vs. Cobol, Holtz said _ and requires the programmer to learn a new set of commands for each type of IBM system. But at least APPC is available now for all SAA systems. To date, the Common Programming Interface for Communications only supports VM/SP Release 6, with no release date for the other versions. On the other hand, the new interface may well be a must for any firm that ``wants to be considered a serious IBM player,'' said Joseph Clabby, communications marketing manager at Data General Corp. Last week, DG became the first major vendor to announce support for the interface, which provides what APPC was supposed to provide _ ``a more or less standard platform that would allow us to tie into disparate IBM systems,'' Clabby claimed. IBM's decision to provide OSI support for the interface is great, Clabby added, because ``it allows our OSI products to talk to their OSI, as well as our SNA to their SNA.'' `Kosher' connections Flexlink International Corp. is another company that plans to support IBM's interface. The Seattle vendor sells software to link IBM, Digital Equipment Corp. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. systems and will soon support both OSI and LU6.2, said Flexlink director of technical marketing Gregory Brown. Customers may demand support of IBM's interface as ``the kosher way'' to SAA compatibility, Brown said. One such customer may well be Chevron Corp., which currently has ``no elegant way'' to link its DEC and IBM systems, according to Stephen White, supervisor of communications at Chevron Information Technology Co. While the company had initially passed over Flexlink, it may reconsider because of Flexlink's ability to support strategic protocols such as OSI and IBM's common programming interface, White said. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Microsoft delays downplay Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: delay Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: REDMOND, Wash. _ Microsoft Corp.'s uncharacteristic stumble last week, announcing delays on key products, sent shock waves through Wall Street but seemed to cause little concern among users waiting for updates of Word for IBM Personal Computers and Apple Computer, Inc. Macintoshes by April. Microsoft said that shipments of the updated word processor programs _ Microsoft Word 4.0 for the Macintosh and Microsoft Word 5.0 for the PC _ will be delayed until next month. The firm had promised the upgrades by the end of 1988, later revising that to March, but it underestimated the time needed for debugging and performance testing of the products, said Jeff Raikes, general manager of Microsoft's office business unit. ``We needed the release date to be later than our [hardware] procurement cycle, so it worked to our advantage,'' said Camille Intagliata, manager of the information center at Chicago-based Homart Development Co., a real estate development subsidiary of Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group, Inc. Homart, which is now converting terminal users from its former Sperry Corp. 1100 mainframe to PCs, has standardized on the Microsoft Word package and plans to double its installed base of 150 PCs. ``Like everyone, [we are] concerned with delays,'' Intagliata said. ``Anytime you hear of a delay you're concerned, but delays often mean less bugs.'' Intagliata said she has tested a beta version of 5.0, and likes the package's improved graphics and laser printer capabilities. Slow to jump ``As far as 4.0 goes, we wouldn't be jumping to that right away,'' said Doug Scott, an attorney for Fasken & Calvin, a Toronto-based law firm with 220 Macintosh systems running the earlier version of Word. ``It's not going to trouble me if we don't get 4.0 until three months from now.'' Microsoft also admitted it has run out of stock worldwide on both current versions of the Word product line, Microsoft's largest-selling application; the firm has no plans to restock the old versions. Fasken & Calvin has been beta-testing the Word 4.0 Macintosh update, and Scott's main concern is how much memory the Mac upgrade uses. Microsoft has assured the firm that the new version requires only 512K bytes of memory. After the disclosure, Microsoft's stock tumbled $8.50 to $53.50 per share in trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The company's third-quarter revenue projections _ between $180 million and $200 million _ exceed the $168 million in sales for last year's third quarter but fall short of the $215 million projected by most market analysts. The firm also attributed its lowered revenue expectations to the fact that several of its largest distributors and resellers are overstocked. The company added that these customers appear to be reducing inventories. Microsoft's misfortune should only be temporary for the industry's leading supplier of PC software, but the firm will not bounce back immediately, said Alex Brown & Sons, Inc. analyst W. Christopher Mortenson. Glaring glitches ``The real issue was that Microsoft was experiencing a slowdown,'' Mortenson said. ``There were few new applications available to sell, so any kind of a glitch was more noticeable.'' Meanwhile, Ashton-Tate Corp. reported higher earnings and revenue in its fiscal year-end results for the period ended Jan. 31. Its earnings rose 10.7% to $47.8 million, or $1.83 per share, up from $43.1 million, or $1.70 per share, a year ago. Ashton-Tate showed a 15% increase in year-end sales with revenue reaching $307.3 million, up from $267.3 million last year. For the fourth quarter, it reported earnings of $13.4 million, or 51 cents per share, up from $12.8 million, or 50 cents per share, for the fourth quarter in 1988. By Patrick Waurzyniak, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Eastern-linked System One Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: east Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: HOUSTON _ The strike last week that paralyzed Eastern Airlines, forced the layoffs of some 5,000 employees and pushed the carrier into Chapter 11, may next rock the firm's data processing operations. Although the 3,400 employees at Eastern and Texas Air DP subsidiary System One Corp. are not unionized, the turmoil could cause layoffs and restructuring. Because of diversification, however, System One could weather even the fiercest storm without crashing, one official noted. Likely scenarios, according to analysts and employees, are liquidation, the sale of Eastern to another airline such as TWA or an eventual settlement. Meanwhile, the employees can only wait and see what happens next in this fast-moving corporate saga. System One was formed as a ``self-sufficient profit center'' after the 1986 merger of Eastern and Texas Air. Since its founding, the firm has diversified into supporting smaller carriers and has a stake in the European transportation market, pointed out a senior-level MIS official who asked not to be named. System One also supports Continental, a nonunion airline owned by Texas Air that so far has not been affected by the strike. This has not soothed the System One employees who survived January layoffs of 350 workers, which many claim were in preparation for an expected strike. Always nervous ``You always have to be nervous,'' noted one senior programmer, who worries that if Eastern is sold to another carrier, its reservation system will no longer be required. The programmer said he is grateful for the high degree of technical training most System One employees have. ``If something happens, we can get another job.'' System One had been on a roll until the Eastern labor dispute reared its head some 17 months ago. It had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in technology and manpower to grab a slice of the transportation information systems market. Even after the layoffs early this year, System One has 1,000 more employees than it had when it was founded. While the headlines rage, company officials simply attempt to calm employees' nerves. ``We are telling our employees that it is business as usual at System One,'' said System One spokeswoman Charlotte Kirk. By Douglas Barney and William Brandel, CW staff <<<>>> Title : IS execs depart Aetna, Pe Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: penn Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Top IS executives Irwin J. Sitkin at Aetna Life & Casualty and Patrick L. Manning at Pennzoil Co. have announced their departures _ Sitkin by retirement and Manning by unexpected resignation. Pennzoil confirmed last week that Manning, president of Pennzoil's Strategic Information Services Co. (Stratis) and a member of the firm's operating committee, has left the company and will not be replaced. The Houston-based oil firm's top IS executive is now Keith Eaton, executive vice-president of Stratis, who reports to Clifton H. Fridge, senior vice-president of accounting and controller. Eaton formerly reported to Manning. Manning, 51, headed Pennzoil's four-year, $50 million strategy to revamp its nationwide data network and spin off Stratis, an independent business selling software and services [CW, Jan. 25, 1988]. Pennzoil spokesman Bob Harper said Manning's departure was not related to any performance criteria for Stratis. ``Pat just chose to resign to pursue other interests,'' he said. Manning could not be reached for comment. Sources close to the company said he plans to continue his IS career elsewhere. Eaton, another former Kerr-McGee IS employee, joined Pennzoil in 1986 as director of MIS and user support services. He was promoted to vice-president of MIS in 1987. Aetna turned to a competitor in the insurance industry for Sitkin's replacement. John D. Loewenberg, formerly the top IS executive at Louisville, Ky.-based Capital Holding Corp., begins work today in the new position of senior vice-president, corporate information systems, at the $22 billion Hartford, Conn.-based insurance giant. He reports to Aetna Chairman James T. Lynn. Loewenberg's hiring coincides with a reorganization of top-level IS management at Aetna. He will head a new corporate IS department comprising three functions that had been grouped under Sitkin's domain, corporate administration. The functions are corporate technology planning, technology services and applications systems services. Sitkin will retire June 30 and continue as an Aetna consultant for an unspecified time. A 35-year Aetna veteran, Sitkin downplayed the significance of his retirement and Aetna's IS reorganization. His retirement ``has been in the works for some time, really since 1985,'' he said. ``There's no big purge here.'' By Clinton Wilder, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Bank of America snags IS Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: bankam Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: SAN FRANCISCO _ Bank of America last week named a 30-year IBM information management veteran to head up the San Francisco data center that runs the bank's automated teller, check-processing and other computer-based services. The bank named Ray O. Vander Vliet as managing director of its data center, which is located in the heart of San Francisco's financial district. The center is responsible for operating Bank of America's Versateller ATM system throughout northern California and also supports the bank's wholesale banking services in the U.S. market. Earlier in his IBM career, Vander Vliet had been one of the three original designers of CICS for IBM while at an IBM development center in Des Plaines, Ill. He later transferred to Palo Alto, Calif., where he was the senior programmer manager responsible for CICS and IMS worldwide revenue, development and maintenance, before moving to IBM's Tucson, Ariz., site. Vander Vliet will report to Didier Milhaud, Bank of America's senior vice-president and chief of operations for the systems engineering department. At Bank of America, Vander Vliet said the top priority is to stabilize and implement all of the bank's computer services to ensure that the applications that serve customers are available to them. Vander Vliet said his ``main mission is to ensure that those services are the best in the banking industry.'' Vander Vliet, who joined IBM three years after starting in data processing in 1956 in the U.S. Air Force, most recently ran the information systems department at IBM's Tucson site, which he helped set up in 1978. Until taking IBM's offer of early retirement last month, Vander Vliet had been IBM's functional information systems manager in Tucson. By Patrick Waurzyniak, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Interface '89 ignites net Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: inter Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: NEW YORK _ The network interconnectivity arena that was warmed up at the Communication Networks '89 Conference and Exposition got hotter when Digital Equipment Corp. joined the fray earlier this month and is scheduled to burst into flames at this week's Interface '89 show with at least five introductions. These include the following: In-Net Corp. will announce Fibertalk 5000, a series of bridges that are said to allow users to link their existing Token-Ring and Ethernet local-area networks to In-Net's 100M bit/sec. Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) network. Both bridges are priced at $22,000. New introductions and falling prices should help the market for high-speed fiber LANs, such as FDDI, soar from $10.7 million this year to $126.5 million in 1993, according to Kessler Marketing Intelligence in Newport, R.I. Infotron Systems Corp.'s LAN systems division will announce a CCITT X.25 module for its Commix 32 LAN/WAN server, which is said to allow LAN users to send over a packet-switched network. The module also interfaces with Streamline 25, another Infotron introduction, which is said to support both packet- and circuit-switched transmissions over a single 64K bit/sec. line, with T1 support slated for later this year, Infotron said. Some channels in the link could thus be designated for voice traffic, while others could carry LAN traffic. Streamline 25 prices begin at $15,000. Halley Systems, Inc. will announce Connectlan 210, a bridge-router that is said to perform the translation necessary to connect IBM 802.5 Token-Ring LANs with Token-Ring products from 3Com Corp., Novell, Inc. and others. Priced at $12,995, the bridge supports local inter-LAN connections now, with a remote version to come. Advanced Computer Communications, Inc. will announce software for its ACS 4100 bridge-router platform, which is said to provide intelligent routing of DEC Decnet and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol transmissions between Token-Ring networks and transparent bridging for other protocols. BICC Data Networks Ltd. will announce a local 802.3 Ethernet bridge, to be priced at $7,500, and a network management system for the product, priced at $5,595. Also at the conference, NCR Comten, Inc. is expected to introduce a modular IBM communications processor platform that will provide users with on-site upgradability without the need to trade in hardware or interrupt network operations, a company spokeswoman said. Migration on Comten's current line preserves software and some termination equipment but forces users to purchase a new main processor that is ``almost like buying a new system'' and requires taking the network down for at least a day, the spokeswoman said. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Cray machines cited in Ja Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: ntt Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: TOKYO _ Cray Research, Inc. supercomputers bubbled to the top of the brewing Recruit Cosmos influence peddling scandal here last week. Cray itself was not implicated, but alleged kickbacks from the resale of Cray systems resulted in the arrest here of Hisashi Shinto, former chairman of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (NTT). Shinto resigned as head of the world's richest corporation and Japan's largest telecommunications operator late last year amid allegations he received some $70,000 in the government-rocking stock scandal here. Shinto's arrest placed NTT at the heart of the scandal and more strongly implied misdeeds by top politicians, including former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. Proceeds from Recruit Cosmos stock, according to Japanese television reports, were actually kickbacks to Shinto for the purchase of two Cray supercomputers. The Crays form the legs of a triangular relationship among Shinto, Nakasone and Hiromasa Ezoe, former chairman of Recruit Co., the parent company of Recruit Cosmos. According to reports from the prosecutor's office, just prior to NTT's purchase of four Crays _ two of which were later resold to Recruit _ Nakasone had been under pressure from the U.S. government to increase Japan's procurement of U.S. goods. Nakasone reportedly saved face with the U.S. when Shinto agreed that NTT would buy four Crays. Recruit's Ezoe allegedly met with Shinto twice, once last August and once in September 1987. The second of those meetings reportedly was to discuss buying two Crays from NTT to support a digital-line service. March 4, Ezoe and Hiroshi Kobayashi, former vice-president of Recruit affiliate First Finance Co., were indicted on suspicion of bribing two former NTT executive directors, also indicted March 4, in exchange for favorable deals with Recruit, a time-sharing company that leases its lines from NTT. ``It was very visible to us that the ultimate recipient would be Recruit,'' Cray spokesman John Swinson said last week, adding that the company declared the recipient and value of the systems on an export license application. ``The question now is, did Recruit get a sweet deal on a supercomputer? And that's purely out of our hands.'' U.S. Department of Commerce officials had little to say about Cray's connection to the scandal. ``We're not getting excited'' over the Recruit scandal, said Ed Leslie, an officer at the department's Japanese Desk. ``We're here to promote the sale of U.S. products.'' Recruit ``is a service bureau that sells computer services to businesses and universities,'' said Gary Smaby, vice-president of Needham Securities, Inc. in Minneapolis, who has followed Cray for many years. ``It seems that the stock scandal is separate from the business operations of Recruit.'' Shinto reportedly received the proceeds from 10,000 shares of Recruit Cosmos stock purchased by his former secretary, who transferred $69,231 into Shinto's bank account from sales of the stock after it went public. Tokyo prosecutors concluded the aide, Kozo Murata, purchased the shares for Shinto and arrested both men. Shinto and Murata were both charged with receiving bribes. The scandal involved sales of prelisted stock in real estate firm Recruit Cosmos by Ezoe. Ezoe allegedly offered officials and company executives stock in Recruit Cosmos before it went public so that they could earn hefty profits by selling the stock when it was issued on the over-the-counter market in October 1986. In a press conference last week, NTT President Haruo Yamaguchi said, ``We are sorry about the problems arising over the arrest of Shinto and Murata. I would like to most sincerely apologize to everyone about the disturbance. Even now, there is nothing wrong with what they did. But I have to admit that it exceeded its bounds.'' West Coast Bureau Chief Jean S. Bozman and correspondent J. A. Savage contributed to this report. By Lori Valigra, IDG News Service <<<>>> Title : Mini vendors adapt in ord Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: tech2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: One of the oldest laws of the jungle warns that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. The recent introduction of powerful and inexpensive Unix-based workstations and servers by minicomputer makers Digital Equipment Corp. and Data General Corp. are the latest walking, talking examples of that creed. The truth is, DEC and DG had few options in their decision to play hardball with workstation makers such as Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Apollo Computer, Inc. In the past few years, both companies have received a painful price/performance black eye from Sun's highly regarded Sun-3 and the ramping up of the Sun-4 reduced instruction set computing (RISC) line. The result is that minicomputer vendors have been forced to do some rapid paddling to keep their heads above water. In the case of DEC and DG, the arithmetic for solving their problem was simple: cannibalize their own products or sit idly by while others did. ``If we didn't introduce [the workstations], somebody else would,'' confessed Herb Osher, division director of product marketing at Westboro, Mass.-based DG. Both companies came out swinging. DG's Aviion series offers processing speeds of 17 million instruction per second (MIPS) for a cut-rate $7,450, while DEC followed close behind with the Decstation 3100, which boasts 14 MIPS for less than $12,000. Both machines are also based on the highly touted RISC concept, which could be the first step in both firms' evolution toward an all-RISC line. DEC discussed two CMOS RISC processors it is working on at the recent International Solid-State Circuits Conference in New York, while DG is ``essentially building a company from within'' with its new line, according to Judy Hurwitz, an analyst at Patricia Seybold's Office Computing Group in Boston. While DEC, DG, Sun, Apollo and others slug it out in the mud, users can watch from the sidelines, comfortable in knowing they will be the winners. Whatever happens, the user is bound to throw in with whoever provides the most bang for the buck. ``We'll be getting a lot more power for virtually no price increase,'' said Al Rocco, a spokesman at Medical Information Technology , a hospital software supplier in Westwood, Mass., where nine DG minis reside. ``We're very anxious to get our hands on'' the new machines. Sun and Hewlett-Packard Co. will have plenty of time to play price/performance catch-up, though. The announcements made by DEC and DG will not bear a substantial application base for at least 12 months. Still, they are important first steps for both firms. Not only does it prevent hemorrhaging, but it also provides a lucrative opportunity. The annual revenue for the worldwide workstation market grew 53% last year to $4.1 billion, according to a report recently issued by market research firm Dataquest, Inc. The introductions are also a sterling example of how the midrange vendors must change in order to survive. While the advent of low-cost powerful workstations is not the beginning of the end for the minicomputer market, it is most certainly the end of the beginning. Minicomputer makers have suddenly been forced to do some powerful soul-searching. Some analysts said they feel these systems are the beginning of ``throwaway'' workstations. ``I think we'll be seeing people use their machines for only a few years,'' said Peter Kastner, vice-president of Aberdeen Group, a market research firm in Boston. ``By then the technology will have leapfrogged anything you have and you'll get another. And the cost will allow that.'' Additionally, most minicomputer makers are quickly realizing that they will have to expand their traditional horizons _ particularly in the communications area _ if they hope to survive. ``Instead of being batch-oriented terminal-and-host systems, we'll see minicomputers used as file and data servers,'' said Vicki Brown, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. Several minicomputer makers have already made moves in that direction. HP expects to ship the first local-area network manager on OS/2 that is scalable to Unix-based systems and has also unveiled a server-oriented alliance with 3Com Corp. [CW, Feb. 27]. Competitors such as DEC and Apollo also recently announced a joint communications development pact aimed at extending Apollo's Network Computing System. But these are not the only ways the mini makers intend to stay afloat. DEC officials note that they plan to make a thrust into application-specific software, particularly computer-aided software engineering. ``We see CASE as our Trojan horse for selling the rest of Digital's features,'' said William Steul, vice-president of DEC's Corporate Systems Group in Marlboro, Mass. By James Daly, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Sollution pollution Author : Nell Margolis Source : CW Comm FileName: nell2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Last week, a Berkeley, Calif., jury convicted a defendant of petty shoplifting. The defendant _ I kid you not _ was named Mr. Badness. The trial took four days. Think about it: only four days to get Badness out of Berkeley. Maybe the jury would be willing to take a few more days and try getting Solutions out of the computer industry. Of course, they had only one Badness to deal with, and if you go by the past few months' worth of press releases, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of Solutions out there. In fact, it appears that the Solutions industry has grown to be a little more than twice the size of the computer industry. I'm not unsympathetic toward the folks who decided to get their companies out of such commodities as hardware and software and into Solutions. Once done, the die was cast. Faced with competitors that peddle Solutions, which among us would be foolhardy enough to proffer mere applications? What's more, Solutions vendors should suffer few truth-in-advertising woes. The company that announces, say, a parallel processing workstation capable of kicking out 20 millions of instructions per second (MIPS) is vulnerable on multiple bases. There are wiseacres and bigmouths hanging around the computer industry who claim to know parallel processors when they see them. There are those who have ways of measuring MIPS. Just about the only safe word in the whole misbegotten product description is ``Workstation;'' exactly what that means is still being debated. But even Workstation lacks the elegant unassailability of ``Solution.'' Who can say that a company claiming to offer a Solution, isn't? Quite possibly, the only safer route would be for a company to hold itself out as a purveyor of ``Stuff.'' And it gets better. The booming Solutions industry has gained a powerful advocate in the person of Mr. Webster, of dictionary fame. According to Webster's _ brace yourself, here comes a shocker _ not enough companies are in the Solutions business. The dictionary defines solution as ``an answer to a problem.'' This is no doubt what the current crop of defectors from the computer industry had in mind. But there's more. Webster's says that ``solution'' also means ``the condition of being dissolved.'' Could there be a better way for firms about to merge, get acquired or file under Chapter 11 to announce their arrival as Solutions vendors? The goodies keep coming. ``Solution,'' the dictionary says, also means ``a bringing or coming to an end or into a state of discontinuity.'' Anybody out there phasing out a product line? Don't apologize to your customers; get out a release and boast. You're in Solutions now. And, should anyone question your right to be, don't throw away those announcements; store them for recycling in a year or two. Even Badness is coming around again _ unless he angers his probation officer. By Nell Margolis; Margolis is Computerworld's senior editor, computer industry. <<<>>> Title : Chip maker reconciliation Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: japan Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: SANTA CLARA, Calif. _ East met West in Silicon Valley last week as major Japanese semiconductor manufacturers arrived to address their U.S. counterparts. But any reconciliation between the two still seemed far away. The Electronic Industries Association in Japan (EIAJ) held a day-long seminar here to reach out to U.S. suppliers of chip components. The meeting was part of a September 1988 action plan to build long-term relationships between Japanese firms and foreign chip suppliers. But it came just a week after the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) asked U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills for help in gaining access to the insular Japanese computer market. ``We want to emphasize as strongly as we can that the Japanese market for semiconductors is wide open to U.S. semiconductor suppliers,'' said Toori Sato, chairman of the EIAJ's Users Committee of Foreign Semiconductors. SIA members, however, were not convinced. U.S. semiconductor suppliers have maintained a relatively low profile in Japan. Last year, they generated about $2.1 billion in Japanese sales, which amounted to less than 10% of the Japanese semiconductor market, according to the EIAJ. However, the number of ``design-ins,'' meetings in which U.S. engineers visit Japanese companies to refine product specifications, rose from 100 to 120 in 1987. Sato claimed that U.S. firms failed to penetrate their market because of ongoing mismatches between the Japanese need for application-specific integrated circuits related to auto and consumer electronics products and the U.S. supply of standard memory and merchant chips for computer and office systems. Even so, Kazuhiko Toyama, vice-chairman of the EIAJ Users Committee, cited some recent examples of trans-Pacific cooperation: Texas Instruments, Inc., he noted, supplied Hitachi Ltd. with 16M-byte dynamic random-access memory chips for computer memory and took over the manufacture of certain TTL chips for NEC Ltd; Motorola supplied Toshiba Corp. with a motor-drive circuit for compact-disc players; and Intel Corp. made an 8-bit microprocessor for Hitachi's VCRs. By Jean S. Bozman, CW staff <<<>>> Title : It's HDTV or no PCs Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: aea2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: How badly could the U.S. computer industry be hurt by the country's failure to establish major presence in the HDTV market? The American Electronics Association addressed the question in a study published last fall and came up with disturbing answers. Take PCs, for instance; the point is, somebody might. . . . U.S.-owned companies currently command approximately 70% of the worldwide PC market. If the U.S. can claim a 50% or higher share of the domestic market in HDTV products by the year 2010, the study concluded, it will hold its 70% market share in PCs. If, however, 10% or less of the U.S. HDTV products market is attributable to U.S. companies at that time, according to the study, the U.S. could lose 50% of its worldwide PC market share. A demotion to 35% shareholder of the worldwide PC market, the study said, would cost the U.S. $110 billion in the year 2010 alone. <<<>>> Title : Consortium sought for opt Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: sarnoff2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: WASHINGTON, D.C. _ The David Sarnoff Research Center is trying to interest the government in partially funding a new kind of electronics industry consortium _ one that would actually make and sell a product. Specifically, the proposed consortium would develop, and eventually sell, optoelectronic integrated circuits, which use high-speed, optical transmitters and receivers to make interconnections between chips. This would replace the current use of wired-pin connections. ``This venture would be an extremely cost-effective way for U.S. semiconductor, computer, communications and aerospace industries to control the supply of their key components,'' noted Carmen A. Catanese, vice-president of Sarnoff's Solid State Research Division in Princeton, N.J. The technical cornerstone of the Sarnoff proposal is a new semiconductor diode laser recently developed by the center, called the Grating Surface Emitting laser. This laser-in-a-chip emits a light that is 100 times brighter than any previous device, enabling chip-to-chip communication at rates in excess of 1G bit/sec., according to Sarnoff researchers. The goal would be to overcome the bottleneck caused by electrical interconnections in the chip, between chips and between circuit boards, Catanese said. Applications for optical circuits include advanced computer graphics, product simulation, robotics, defense electronics and telecommunications switching. Sarnoff officials said the project will require about $15 million in start-up costs for the first year. ``We hope to see this kind of venture become the primary role model for future business consortiums in the U.S.,'' said James J. Tietjen, president of the center, a subsidiary of SRI International. By Mitch Betts, CW staff <<<>>> Title : MIS should tune in HDTV Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: mishd Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: High-definition television (HDTV) is in the limelight these days, but do MIS directors need to care about what seems to be largely a consumer electronics battlefront? ``If they care about keeping their jobs in about five years, yes, they do,'' said Norman Weizer, a computer consultant at Cambridge, Mass.-based Arthur D. Little, Inc. The U.S. electronics industry has held up the HDTV issue as a crucial linchpin to future technological development. No MIS director can afford to view the potential erosion of the U.S. computer industry with equanimity, said Robert Curran, executive director of computer services and telecommunications at Medford, Mass.-based Tufts University. ``If we abandon a technology like HDTV, that technology will be developed by others, for the purposes of others,'' he said. ``We'll lose a great amount of control.'' U.S.-based MIS directors, Curran added, are likely to have little clout with Japanese and European developers. HDTV is more than a bigger and better television set, said Stephen Cohen, director of Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy in Berkeley, Calif. It is the technological bridge between today's market and a rapidly approaching digital-based electronics/computer industry in which the barriers between televisions and computers no longer exist. Currently, the consumer electronics industry is heavily reliant on analog technology, while the digital-based computer industry relies on different components to build different products, generally for business customers. But with the new market that ``digital fusion'' ushers in, Cohen said, computer companies will duke it out with consumer electronics makers for the same customers. When they do, he said, the winners are likely to be the companies that have pulled ahead in research dollars and depth, thanks to what they have earned and learned in their years of HDTV production. For instance, Cohen said, ``HDTV provides the occasion for high-quality mass production of chips.'' If Japan or any other country becomes dominant in the chip arena, currently a U.S. preserve, the ramifications for the U.S. computer industry will be dire, Cohen said. ``If other guys make it faster, better and cheaper than you do,'' he said, ``there's very little chance that customers are going to buy yours.'' Similarly, he said, HDTV is predominantly a display technology. Right now, it only makes sense with giant, unwieldy screens. However, Cohen added, ``the whole promise of this technology is the compact, flat-panel display. If they start making screens like that, forget the computer screen. It's through.'' Griffith Resor is the president of MRS Technology, Inc., which makes production equipment for flat-panel LCDs. Resor's company is based in Chelmsford, Mass. His clients are based in Japan. If the U.S. defaults in HDTV, Resor said, ``my personal opinion is that it's not going to be harmful to the U.S. computer industry; it's going to be fatal.'' He foresees an ``order of defeat'' that begins with laptops, progresses through workstations and personal computers, works its way through network servers and conceivably ends up with mainframes. The scenario is not unrealistic, according to Cohen. The U.S. computer industry, he said, ``is standing right smack in the middle of the track, and the bullet train is coming.'' Even if the future of the domestic computer industry does not hang in the balance, Curran said, HDTV is a serious development that MIS should not dare to ignore. ``HDTV could _ and probably will _change the entire nature of broadcasting, which, in turn, will change the face of communications,'' he said. ``Communications is an integral part of how we do everything we do. If we're not interested in that, we darn well ought to be.'' In addition, Curran said, international competition for HDTV turf is likely to involve the evolution of competing standards for the likes of bandwidth and broadcasting frequencies. ``If MIS directors don't pay attention to the development of such standards,'' Curran noted, ``the result will be a lot of difficulty and expense.'' Offering an analogy, Curran pointed to the costs incurred by MIS establishments that opted for beta-test versions of the videocassette recorder only to find very high frequency, or VHS, the emergent standard. Whatever else, Curran said, ``MIS has to take an interest in HDTV because we have to learn what is at stake. I don't think we really know.'' By Nell Margolis, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Miniscribe's troubles esc Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: mini Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: LONGMONT, Colo. _ The recent resignation of Miniscribe Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Q. T. Wiles was the latest piece of bad news to come from the troubled disk drive manufacturer. It is unlikely to be the last: Early this month, the firm announced its intention to lay off 250 workers, bringing the company's total work force down to 6,000. Last year, Miniscribe employed 8,350. Industry watchers said Miniscribe has suffered from competitive pressures, including rampant price cutting, in the disk drive industry. ``Miniscribe is one of several companies that got a bit mangled at the end of last year, when it became clear that the industry was producing more than the market could bear,'' said Robert Katzive, vice-president of Disk/Trend, Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif.-based market research firm. ``There were 10 companies shooting for 40% market share and gearing up their production and inventory accordingly.'' Wiles has headed the company since 1985, when San Francisco-based Hambrecht & Quist, Inc. wrested control of the company through a $20 million cash infusion. Hambrecht & Quist holdings in the disk drive manufacturer are currently estimated at 20%. According to a company spokesman, the 70-year-old Wiles has relinquished his position because he felt he could not spend the time and energy necessary to run the company. A longtime director of Hambrecht & Quist, Wiles is considered the firm's turnaround expert. He sits on the boards of a number of companies in which Hambrecht & Quist has a stake. Replacing Wiles is another Hambrecht & Quist executive, Richard Rifenburgh. Until its stumble in the fourth quarter, Wiles had been credited with saving Miniscribe, which lost its contract with IBM in 1985. IBM had been Miniscribe's leading source of revenue. By Julie Pitta, CW staff <<<>>> Title : In brief Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 2week Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Nixdorf president departs Ending his seven-year tenure as president of Nixdorf Computer Corp. of North America, IBM veteran Michael Anderson has joined NEC Information Systems, Inc. as executive vice-president. Meanwhile, Nixdorf board member Albert Holler has stepped into the presidency vacated by Anderson _ a first-time occurrence for the Waltham, Mass.-based subsidiary of the West German computer giant. Largo key to AT&T AT&T last week unveiled its Largo, Fla.-based data communications equipment subsidiary, AT&T Paradyne. Born of the union between an existing AT&T operation and the company's recently acquired Paradyne Corp., the subsidiary exemplifies AT&T's recently announced strategy of launching businesses that home in on specific customer and product groups, a company spokesman said. And the beat goes on . . . Tape drive and optical disk drive maker Cipher Data Products, Inc. is tendering $13 per share for all shares of Irwin Magnetic Systems, Inc. . . . and on . . .Sungard Data Systems, Inc., purveyor of investment management systems to the financial services industry, is poised to acquire investment management software company Money Management Systems, Inc. Money Management President Jay Goldberg will continue to manage the company after the acquisition, according to a Sungard spokesman. . . . and onSausalito, Calif.-based computer-aided design player Autodesk, Inc. is buying privately held Generic Software, Inc., a maker of low-cost computer-aided design (CAD) software. The acquisition will create a combined company with an installed base of close to 500,000 CAD users, Autodesk said. Generic Software will reportedly retain both its president, Bob Fulton, and its Bothell, Wash., location. Public offering Bytex Corp. is taking its fault-tolerant electronic matrix-switching business to the public. The Southboro, Mass.-based company anticipates its initial public offering of 1,350,000 shares of common stock to be priced at $8 to $10 per share. <<<>>> Title : Hughes snags on the last Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: sytek Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. _ After two years on the block, Sytek, Inc., the last independent among the big three in general-purpose networking, finally landed a buyer last week _ Hughes Aircraft Co., a unit of GM Hughes Electronics. Terms of the agreement, which are expected to be completed in 60 days, were not disclosed. Sytek's largest investor, General Instruments Corp., traded its 57% interest in the privately held firm for about $50 million. Sytek's total value is estimated at between $87.7 million and $100 million. ``It was the last of the beachfront property,'' observed Harry K. Rosenthal, a vice-president and analyst at Deutsche Bank Capital Corp. ``Who else was left?'' Sytek's two primary competitors were Bridge Communications, Inc., which was purchased in September 1987 by 3Com Corp., and Ungermann-Bass, Inc., which was acquired by Tandem Corp. last June. Sytek _ a provider of local-area and terminal-to-host networks _ becomes Hughes LAN Systems (HLS), a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft Co., on April 28. Hughes provides wide-area and satellite communications [CW, March 6]. The combined forces will target enterprisewide networks supporting voice, data and image in government and commercial accounts, a market they estimate will reach $10 billion within five years. The merger will enable Sytek to stretch its wings over geographically dispersed networks, while providing Hughes with the opportunity both to plumb its accounts down to the desktop and to expand its reach into the corporate market. Hughes parent General Motors Corp. also owns Electronic Data Systems Corp. ``I hope EDS will become one of [Sytek-Hughes] biggest customers,'' said Jack Shaw, chairman and chief executive officer at Hughes Network Systems. Initially, HLS will work with two other Hughes divisions, Hughes Aircraft and Hughes Network Systems. Interoperability and single-source management of their combined equipment base is a top priority. The merged entity is already soliciting business from a Fortune 20 company based on the combined technology. Hughes is concentrated mostly in the government sector. ``With the new administration, the defense budget . . . may not grow as fast and may even shrink,'' Shaw said _ hence the company's interest in the corporate market. By most observers' reckonings, Sytek has spent the last two years in retrenchment mode.At one point, Sytek was riding high as the codeveloper of IBM's PC Network. In 1986, that contract represented 49% of Sytek's revenue. Then the bottom fell out: Poor PC Network sales led IBM to abruptly cancel the OEM deal. Demand also softened in Sytek's traditional market, terminal-to-host links. Layoffs followed. Since fiscal 1987, Sytek has devoted itself to restructuring and diversifying the firm in an effort to land a buyer. By Patricia Keefe, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Zenith, AT&T in HDTV bid Author : Nell Margolis Source : CW Comm FileName: hds2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Even as Congress is considering what, if any, role the federal government should play in attempting to erect and defend a U.S. stronghold in HDTV, U.S.-based private industry and government dollars are teaming up to make initial forays into the market that many industry observers consider indispensable to the continued growth of the U.S. computer industry. The latest assault on the HDTV citadel comes from the pairing of the U.S.' lone force in the worldwide television market with its premier communications company. Zenith Electronics Corp. and AT&T are asking the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to fund $13 million worth of a $24 million joint research and development project aimed at creating an HDTV processor/receiver, integrated circuitry and prototype hardware for a Zenith-designed HDTV transmission system. In a separate proposal, Zenith is seeking $10 million from DARPA to co-fund a $21.5 million effort to develop large-screen versions of the company's flat tension-mask high-resolution color picture tubes. According to Zenith President Jerry Pearlman, the projects could combine to produce homegrown technology ``that will allow the U.S. to leapfrog the Japanese and Europeans in HDTV.'' Getting DARPA as a pocket partner, however, is far from a sure thing for Zenith and AT&T. Eighty-two companies are vying for shares of the $30 million that the agency recently set aside to aid in research leading to the development of HDTV products or manufacturing technology, according to a DARPA spokesman. Grants are due to be awarded next month. One of the hopefuls, Japan's Sony Corp., recently put in a bid for a share of the DARPA fund. Federal procurement rules mandate open bidding; therefore, foreign companies are eligible for grants from the fund created to bolster U.S. competitiveness in HDTV. NELL MARGOLIS <<<>>> Title : Janet Mason Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 13career Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Current images of information systems careers on Wall Street often reflect one of two stereotypes: financial instability or a glamorous environment of leading-edge technology. However, people working on the Street tend to portray both notions as overblown. Wall Street is not an island of instability, says Gene Bedell, managing director and manager of information services at First Boston Corp. in New York. Aside from a six- to nine-month downturn after the stock market crash 17 months ago, there has been a healthy demand for IS professionals, Bedell says. Steve Young, manager of technical search at recruiter Pencom Systems, Inc. in New York, concurs. ``There has been some shuffling since the crash, but I would say the changes have been more or less cosmetic, with one firm laying off 50 IS people and others hiring them,'' he says. He estimates that there are the same number of programmers and analysts as before the crash, although ``there may have been some streamlining in the upper tiers of middle management.'' Roger O'Connor, staff consultant at New York-based compensation consultancy Edward Perlin & Associates, Inc., sees layoff concerns ebbing as investment banks and brokerage houses boost their hiring of IS employees with the return of stock market stability. After the crash, many lower level IS employees did tend to stay put, he acknowledges. ``They were anxious about leaving their jobs and going to a firm that might have cutbacks,'' Perlin & Associates says. While Wall Street firms have been putting expert systems and supercomputers to work, managers and recruiters see more growth in practical areas such as networks. ``Expert systems were in vogue for a while, and then they petered out,'' Bedell says. ``There are only a few isolated companies successfully using expert systems.'' The bottom line Technologies that reap bottom-line results, such as networks and computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools, are far more important because the payoffs are larger, Bedell says. When job candidates know a technology such as CASE or connectivity, it's a bonus, he adds. However, he would hire people without those skills. ``We're starting to look for an understanding of CASE in our job candidates, but we will train people in an in-house CASE program that we have,'' Bedell says. Making inroads Unix workstations such as those from Sun Microsystems, Inc. are one new technology making inroads in the front offices of securities organizations. Designed originally for high-speed work by engineers, the workstations are replacing high-end personal computers for statistical analyses. The workstation applications are written in C, fueling the demand for C programmers, Young says. ``It's frequently difficult to find C programmers because most MIS people have been programming in Cobol,'' he says. ``While there will always be a need for Cobol application development, there's much more growth in C, Unix and other advanced technologies.'' However, educational background and interpersonal skills weigh more heavily than technical skills in hiring, according to Young. ``A new employee doesn't have to walk into the company knowing about new technologies. But Wall Street companies do look for degrees from top-tier schools and polished interpersonal skills.'' There are some differences between the hiring practices of brokerage houses and investment houses. According to O'Connor, investment banks tend to be more aggressive about school selection and will pay starting salaries ranging from $30,000 to $33,000. Brokerage houses are not as selective and pay starting salaries in the $28,000 to $30,000 range. Strong interpersonal skills are necessary because the information system professional interfaces with everyone in the organization, from word processing operators to ``temperamental'' traders who, Young says, ``may regard IS people with less than high esteem.'' The back office is a less visible realm of IS in the securities industry, where conventional technology is more predominant. Mark Mosely, manager of human resources applications development at Shearson Lehman Hutton, Inc., says that experience in human resources systems and applications weighs more heavily than financial experience when he hires. Background can vary ``It doesn't matter what industry a person comes from,'' he says. ``It's far more important for the person to have the appropriate technical skills.'' Mosely says that in his department, like similar organizations in other industries, a programmer analyst might earn between $30,000 and $35,000 per year, a business analyst approximately $45,000 and a manager $55,000. While IS people are in demand in the back offices, they will find more advancement and better rewards in front office applications, according to Mosely. ``This is where the making of money takes place,'' he says. By Janet Mason, Special to CW; Mason is a Philadelphia-based free-lance journalist. <<<>>> Title : FBI called lax in wake of Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: spy2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Inattention in pursuing a widely publicized hacking case last year is coming back to haunt the Federal Bureau of Investigation, other federal investigative agencies said last week. The arrest of hackers by West German authorities this month [CW, March 6] for allegedly giving computer information to the Soviets includes Marcus Hess, the same man fingered in last year's penetration of more than 30 computers at U.S. research labs, military installations and defense contractors. Six West German hackers reportedly were detained at the beginning of March following police raids of apartments in Hannover, West Berlin and Hamburg. While the FBI did not pursue the former hacking case, Hess was ``caught'' electronically by a civilian. The FBI has been ``embarrassed'' into more actively pursing computer crime, said Jim Christy, assistant chief of computer crime at the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations in Washington, D.C. ``This case is a catalyst. People are starting to understand the threat,'' he said. Christy's office was assisting in investigating the older Hess case but was frustrated with the lack of attention by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI. Phil Sibert, computer protection program manager at the U.S. Department of Energy, said he is not sure if the FBI was embarrassed into action, but it was certainly caught unprepared, he said. For its part, the FBI would not even confirm it had a case open on the hackers, although both Christy and Sibert had been contacted by the FBI in the past year with information requests. Cliff Stoll, a researcher at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University, was the civilian who set a trap for Hess in 1987 while working in the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. During that time, Stoll said that he found evidence of intrusions by some of the same hackers nabbed in the case by West German authorities. In addition to relating password information to the Soviet Union, Stoll said that those arrested were also passing along information on network connection techniques and hacker methodologies. While tracking the hackers, Stoll became concerned about their political bent. In particular, Hess had been attempting to access any file with a military-sounding title. ``He was looking for keywords you'd associate with someone doing espionage, like `NORAD,' `nuclear bomb' and `SDI,' '' Stoll said. During that time, the U.S. Department of Energy set up measures to heighten awareness of its security and tighten it up, Sibert said. He said that whatever information was passed to the Soviets would do them little good. ``A majority of those systems have been changed, and [passwords and addresses] wouldn't be of any value today,'' he said. By J.A. Savage <<<>>> Title : Concern grows over East B Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 39spy Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: HANNOVER, West Germany _ Official evaluations of this country's latest _ and computerized _ spy scandal differed significantly here last week, but data security experts said it pointed out the seriousness of industrial espionage by East Bloc agents. The Minister of the Interior compared the case to the celebrated ``Guilleaume'' affair that forced the resignation of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974. Guilleaume was the code name of an East German agent who had penetrated the inner circle of the chancellor's advisors before being uncovered. But a spokesman for the federal attorney general here played down the case. Television reporters familiar with the case said privately that the attorney general was refusing to push it because of a lack of sufficient evidence. Intelligence officials denied the press reports, saying the hackers had gained only superficial access to their targets and never managed to access top-secret information. Data processing experts interviewed here, however, argued that even if no defense secrets were lost, the case is important in terms of the industrial information that has been electronically pilfered. The espionage could have cost Western firms several hundred million dollars per year for several years, they estimated, because of the loss of pirated technology. The DP experts said that industrial espionage carried out by East Bloc agents over computer networks has become a very serious issue in Europe. Rainer von zur Muehlen, a security consultant in Bonn, said that most data networks are vulnerable because of operators' negligence on security issues. He said the East German intelligence agency has repeatedly attempted to contact West German DP specialists and that the problem of hacking was widespread. By Ulf Froitzheim, IDG News Service <<<>>> Title : Decision Data Computer Co Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micdeci Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Decision Data Computer Corp. has unveiled a line of personal computers designed to function either as independent computing stations or as workstations connected to IBM minicomputer systems, the company said. The 16-MHz DDCC 5070 is reported to be an Intel Corp. 80386-based machine compatible with both the MS-DOS and OS/2 operating systems. It comes standard with 2M bytes of random-access memory and eight expansion slots and is priced from $2,795. The DDCC 5053 PC features an Intel 16-bit 80286 microprocessor and operates at both 12 and 8 MHz clock speeds, the vendor said. It comes standard with 1M byte of RAM expandable to 16M bytes. The Intel 8086-based DDCC 5030 PC reportedly runs at 9.6 or 8 MHz and is offered with 640K bytes of RAM on the main system board. The DDCC 5053 and DDCC 5030 are priced from $1,579 and $899, respectively. Decision Data 100 Witmer Road Horsham, Pa. 19044 800-523-5357 <<<>>> Title : Data Systems has unveiled Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: miczen Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Data Systems has unveiled a 25-MHz Intel Corp. 80386-based desktop workstation. The Z-386/25 was designed to address the need for network file servers, engineering workstations, high-end business systems or Unix applications in a 386 environment, according to the company. The zero-wait-state system comes standard with 2M bytes of expandable memory and 64K bytes of cache. The machine is available in four configurations: the Model 70 and Model 150 feature a 70M-byte and 150M-byte enhanced small device interface (ESDI) hard disk drive, respectively; the Model 320 reportedly includes a 16-msec, 320M-byte ESDI drive; and the Model 1 includes five expansion slots. Pricing ranges from $6,995 for the Model 1 to $11,999 for the Model 320. Zenith Data Systems 1000 Milwaukee Ave. Glenview, Ill. 60025 800-842-9000 <<<>>> Title : Micro Express Co. has ann Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: microe Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Micro Express Co. has announced that it will no longer use LCD screens in its portable personal computers. According to the company, the entire line of portables will now incorporate gas plasma screens. Such screens have a typical lifetime of 50,000 hours, Micro Express said. New pricing schedule for the Micro Express line of portables is as follows: The Regal II, a 20-MHz Intel Corp. 80386 machine, will cost $3,799; the 20-MHz Intel 80286-based Regal, with 1M byte of random-access memory, will cost $2,799; and the Regal 286 12-MHz computer with 512K bytes of RAM will be priced at $1,999. All three machines carry a one-year warranty on parts and labor. Micro Express 2114 S. Grand Ave. Santa Ana, Calif. 92705 800-642-7621 <<<>>> Title : Learning from past mistak Author : Paul Kirvan Source : CW Comm FileName: twatch Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Until recently, IBM's telecommunications strategy has been plagued by a contradiction. The idea of linking heterogeneous products flies in the face of the company's traditional policy of only providing for a single-vendor environment. This conflict caused users to disregard IBM as a viable telecommunications supplier, until the company awakened five years ago with the purchase of Rolm. Now that IBM is turning over much of its interest in Rolm to Siemens, users are again adopting a wait-and-see attitude about the viability of IBM's telecommunications commitment. IBM's current view of telecommunications is far different from that of the past, despite the appearance of giving up its efforts by selling part of Rolm. IBM now recognizes that MIS lives in a multivendor world and that managers need to link heterogeneous systems. Evidence of this different philosophy is IBM's move from Systems Network Architecture (SNA) to Systems Application Architecture (SAA). SNA was focused on linking single product lines, while SAA provides common user access across different product lines. Events leading to IBM's current telecommunications strategy are part of a painful learning process. Many of the lessons were learned after IBM acquired Rolm, capturing a large base of users and excellent distribution channels as well as a digital switch product in the process. But if there was ever a mismatch in corporate cultures, IBM and Rolm was it. Rather than giving Rolm its own identity, IBM tried to control it. IBM shifted emphasis from Rolm's successful CBX to the 9750 system, which more closely resembled IBM's other products. IBM's biggest mistake with Rolm was to attempt to make sales by making an end run around the telecommunications director to appeal to other executives in the company who were more familiar with IBM. This tactic resulted in many salesman being shown the door. The Rolm experience taught the company the value of joining with a partner that knows the market and possesses substantial resources of its own. This realization led to the sale of Rolm's manufacturing and development segments to Siemens and the joint marketing of Rolm products. Rather than a sign of another failed effort, IBM's partnership with Siemens is a healthy indicator that the company has learned the lessons of its past failures in telecommunications. IBM's interest in Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) also reflects the new understanding. The organization has reportedly been conducting internal ISDN trials for some time. Its ISDN strategy is to develop products while supporting standards as closely as possible and listening for signs of interest from customers. In the meantime, IBM and Siemens must move quickly to resolve the issue of supporting Rolm users. IBM is also quietly turning much of its private branch exchange (PBX) activities over to Siemens and the newly formed offspring, Rolm Co. and Rolm Systems, Inc. Real-world experience Siemens also brings real-world ISDN experience, central office technology, transmission system expertise and a world-class high-end PBX system, called Hicom, to the table. The next order of business is to consolidate product development, service and technical support to present a unified image to users. In other important areas, IBM's moves in communications are more solidly defined. Its relationship with Network Equipment Technologies, which manufactures the Integrated Digital Network Exchange switch, was perceived as an excellent move on IBM's part. Other successes include the IBM Information Network, which links IBM divisions worldwide, and Netview. The company sells time on the network to other companies. Netview is probably one of IBM's most successful products to date, despite new competition from AT&T, which recently announced a similar product called Integrator. But software is where IBM seems to be placing its greatest emphasis. Of particular significance is IBM's direction toward the established Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and Open Systems Interconnect reference models. Most importantly, IBM is reaching out, however cautiously, to the rest of the telecommunications world. In spite of its vast product line, the company has acknowledged a fundamental reality: Users want horizontally and vertically oriented information systems. By Paul Kirvan; Kirvan is head of Paul Kirvan & Associates, a Turnersville, N.J.-based consulting and technical services firm specializing in voice and data communications. <<<>>> Title : Whoops Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: edit313 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: IN THE MIDST of New England's snowless winter one recent day came the weathermen's cocksure prediction of a major blizzard. People prepped by dusting off the shovels, hunkering down at home, staying away from restaurants and movies . . . Only the storm never came, as has been the case all winter, and restaurateurs and other businessmen whose livelihoods depend on people leaving their homes were furious. Last week a storm that wasn't predicted hit the personal computer software business when industry stalwart Microsoft said its profits would nose-dive this quarter, largely because the company will be late in shipping a pair of word processing packages (see story page 6). As a result, company founder Bill Gates lost a king's ransom on paper, PC technology stocks across the board were plundered and, without a doubt, customers across the country are scratching their heads and wondering just whom you can trust these days. Many leading experts were surprised that Microsoft would miss a deadline, as the company had a reputation of doing what it said it would do. But that is a reputation earned only in recent years. You may remember that the vaunted Windows package was a good 18 months late. So now Microsoft joins the ranks of Lotus (a year late with the hotly anticipated 3.0 version of 1-2-3), Ashton-Tate (late on its promised ship date of Dbase IV) and a host of other PC software companies stepping up to the podium to accept this month's ``Waiting for Godot'' award. For those corporate customers that have laid plans in concrete based on the timely release of bug-free products, these foul predictions could spell trouble. Fortunately, you have to believe that no one really takes these companies seriously anymore _ not when it comes to delivering the goods on time. It is safe to assume that these companies are not intentionally misleading their customers on ship dates to, perhaps, freeze purchases of competing products already on dealers' shelves. One look at the steep costs of tardiness to Microsoft, Lotus and others will assure you of that. The problem will be with the industry for some time because of the widening gap between the extraordinary developments in microprocessor technology and developments in software technology that the hardware supports. Consider that Intel is in the advanced stages of work on a million-circuit processor chip, yet we don't even have commercially viable applications to run on the previous generation of 80386 processors, unveiled more than three years ago. In fact, we haven't even seen software that fully exploits the 6-year-old 80286 chip generation. The complexity of PC software development for today's chip platforms is mind-boggling. It is also prohibitive in terms of providing some of the desktop-based solutions so many experts crow about, at least in the near term. This is bad news for the software developers _ and important news for customers. <<<>>> Title : Compaq-ibility Author : William H. Kreid Source : CW Comm FileName: kreilet Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Regarding Compaq compatibility: We wanted 286 board compatibility, 386 software compatibility and a taste of 386 power. A discount price, impressive graphics and the Compaq Computer Corp. name were too much to resist, so we purchased a Compaq 386S. Our old (before 16-bit slot compatibility) Plus Hardcard is not usable (no upgrade available at any price); there goes the cheap add-on disk. The drive mounting rails are unlike anything we have seen in any other computer _ so much for the value of any 5 - or 3 -in. drives. We scoured our parts distributors, service depots and Compaq retail outlets. We called Compaq and two independent drive makers that provide drives for the 386S. The result _ no rails without a drive, and no hints as to where we could possibly find them. So much for the ``protection of our investment'' in disk units. So much, also, for affordable new upgrades this side of those carrying that ``discount'' Compaq parts label. Will we really be better off if Compaq (instead of IBM) becomes the leading player to call the shots that mold the computer bus architectures of the future? William H. Kreider Chairman Systems and Software Services Ltd. Media, Pa. <<<>>> Title : Librarians Author : Pamela N. Danzig Source : CW Comm FileName: danlet Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Regarding ``Snoopers see MIS as Dr. No'' [CW, Feb. 20], readers should know that there is an alternative to MIS for competitive intelligence applications _ the corporate library or information research center. Many librarians have developed sophisticated computer skills as a direct consequence of MIS hesitation to support library applications. Because these library applications require text management expertise, librarians are the ideal partners to work with competitive intelligence departments to design and develop competitive information systems. They also know how to track down and collect information for competitive intelligence use through on-line services, press clippings, trade journals, competitor ads, government agencies and industry experts. Many corporate libraries already have a private database application that, if it does not already include the skeleton of a competitive information tracking system, can be easily expanded to contain this information. Even though the competitive intelligence department is at the bottom of the MIS department's list, they can find expert support for their database application right in their library. Pamela N. Danziger Director Information Research Services Franklin Mint Franklin Center, Pa. <<<>>> Title : SQL performance Author : James D. Gawn Source : CW Comm FileName: gawnlet Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: In ``Getting the most out of SQL'' [CW, Feb. 13], William Inmon focuses solely on one aspect of database use _ transaction speed. In fact, he is urging us not to take advantage of some of the most useful and important features of relational databases such as set processing, joins and referential integrity. The tone of Inmon's article is that raw performance is the sole criterion for judging the worth of a system. Making database structures and processing rules more complex increases the development effort and the risk of error; development time and bad data are expensive. Lack of easy access to information also costs an organization money. Some of the measures Inmon advocates, particularly denormalization, are costly in both these ways. Our organization decided to use a relational database because of its ad hoc query facility and its flexibility for developers, among other things. We have been running a mix of transaction programs, inquiry programs, end-user queries and carefully chosen data definition work in the daytime for over four years. From time to time, we encounter periods of poor performance. The solution may be tuning the system, fixing an application program, user education or more powerful hardware, but in any case, we see the problem as a symptom of our success, not of failure. We feel that the reduction of this kind of response time from years to minutes is well worth the occasional headache of balancing performance factors. James D. Gawn Application Development Manager Millersville University Millersville, Pa. <<<>>> Title : Beatles protest Sgt. Scul Author : Glenn Rifkin Source : CW Comm FileName: applecol Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: News item: The Beatles, whose record company was called Apple, are suing Apple Computer, Inc. for violating a trademark agreement that barred the U.S company from putting the Apple name on various musical products. The Beatles, who really don't exist anymore, are suing those sneaky Cupertino Cuties for leaping into the music business. This is serious. Everyone knows the Beatles (who don't really exist anymore) need more money. Rumor has it that John Lennon's working on a new album _ the 14th release since his death _ and everyone knows how pricey studio time in New York can be. Paul McCartney could use the dough. He reportedly wants to buy the copyrights to the entire works of Beethoven, Mozart, Mitch Miller and Spike Jones. And, of course, poor George Harrison and Ringo Starr are down to their last $30 million or $40 million. But this suit is about more than cash. The Beatles (who still don't exist anymore) are worried about rumors circulating through Silicon Valley that John Sculley is about to release his first album. That's right. The wiley and multitalented CEO is said to have formed a heavy metal group called Johnny and the Dee-Rams. Sources close to Apple (the Mac makers, not the music makers) claim that the band does some very passable renditions of old Beatles' tunes. Among the cuts: ``I Wanna Hold Your Lan,'' ``All We Are Saying, Is Give Mac a Chance,'' ``The Yellow Subroutine'' and ``The Long and Winding Node.'' Sculley reportedly sings lead and handles the keyboard. The Beatles, who are rumored to be planning a reunion concert to raise funds for the upcoming legal battle, object to Apple Computer's unabashed move into the music business. Sculley, in a prepared comment, said, ``I can understand why the boys might be upset. But we've got to raise some money to offset the cost of all those ridiculous chips I bought last year.'' By Glenn Rifkin; Rifkin is a Computerworld senior editor. <<<>>> Title : The `musts' and `must not Author : Amy D. Wohl Source : CW Comm FileName: 227wohl Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Commenting on a vendor creates a kind of love/hate relationship: When the vendor does well, they love our noticing; they hate it when we report that things are going less than well. Analysts in general have been down on IBM's Personal Computer strategy for quite some time now. Market research indicates that corporate accounts are buying into the Personal System/2 and OS/2 strategy more slowly than IBM had hoped. PS/2 sales have fared well, but a substantial percentage of these systems cannot run OS/2 at all (Models 25 and 30). There are also many OS/2-capable models (the 30-286, 50, 50Z, 60, 70 and 80) that are purchased with too little memory to load and run OS/2 without expensive upgrades. Many corporate buyers say they will not even consider a move to OS/2 until substantial applications software arrives _ an event industry commentators expect not to happen in volume this year. MCA befuddlement IBM customers _ and everyone else _ are confused as to what Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) is supposed to be about. Is it just about potential advantages in performance? Or will IBM develop software that requires MCA as an enabling platform? Are Compaq and its Gang of Nine correct when they claim the Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) will be MCA-equivalent? For that matter, will EISA ever materialize? Suspicions and rumors abound, but fact has been hard to come by. In the best presentation of a recent IBM briefing, Dr. Robert Carberry, a senior IBM scientist, knowledgeably and candidly commented on the theory and status of MCA. Ask IBM for a copy of his white paper, ``A Design Perspective on IBM's Micro Channel Architecture'' (November 1988), if you want to know the whys and wherefores. As a result of this meeting, I am at least semiconvinced. I now believe that if you are buying PCs and need upward compatibility with IBM mainframe and mini environments, you should definitely consider buying only Micro Channel machines. But I am still unsure as to whether this course is an immediate imperative if your PCs are mainly deployed in other environments, such as stand-alone devices, systems attached only or mainly to local-area networks and PCs that serve as front ends to other vendors' systems. Confusion reigns Users are confused as to the status of the elusive OS/2 applications software. Even big, sophisticated buyers are not sure what to plan for and when it will come. Contributing to this confusion is the fluid status of other, competing environments. Is DOS going to be very durable? some ask. What about Windows? And why do I keep hearing more and more about Unix? IBM cannot wave its magic wand and clear up all this confusion, but it can and did comment candidly on its own plans and on what its customers demand. IBM seems to see the personal computer marketplace splitting into two parts: a low-cost home/school/small office PC-as-smart-terminal market that it wants to participate in but cannot and does not control, and a high-capability and higher priced corporate workstation market that it wants a much bigger percentage of. IBM's current product strategies seem sharply pointed at exactly that end. Of course, as always, Monday morning quarterbacks can point out some needed refinements: Prices, especially at the low end, need to be more competitive; customers need more choices such as smaller drives for the 70 to create a lower-cost Intel 80386-based machine; and IBM has got to put out much more frequent, updated information about the status of MCA-enabled applications and OS/2 (especially OS/2-PM) software. Put off till tomorrow Perplexed by IBM's aggressive marketing of PS/2s, MCA and OS/2 and counter moves by competitors, customers have been inclined to put this decision on the back burner. The announcement of the PS/2 Model 30-286 in September 1988, for example, allowed IBM competitors to laugh in glee and mistakenly call it the reintroduction of the PC AT. Let's wait, customers say. If everything is this confused, we must have lots of time. But waiting to consider strategies, schedules and migration paths is exactly what customers cannot afford to do. Buying older PC technology when you will need to move to newer technology soon may mean writing off partially used investments _ and your corporate accountants may not like that very much. In fact, they may require you to use the old stuff up, which could delay your ability to take advantage of new software as it becomes available. The machine of choice now is clearly a PS/2 Model 70 or equivalent. It opens every future door while continuing to permit the use of your existing software investment. But just as clearly, not many will choose to make this move quickly. The price is still too high, and many people simply do not need that much power yet. Path of least resistance The minimum move is much more simple: Do not buy any more desktops that cannot load OS/2. Even if you are not investing in all that memory now, make sure the machines can be upgraded later. And consider moving your servers to OS/2 soon. IBM and its colleagues will fully support mixtures of DOS and OS/2 machines in OS/2 LAN and server environments. This setup gives you a window into the future while permitting an easier migration path from past investments. But everything hinges, of course, on the software. Rest assured, the software is coming _ OS/2-PM versions of old friends and entirely new packages, some from entirely new companies. When the compelling application comes, I think we will know it. But do not expect it to be a spreadsheet or a word processor. The next round will belong to using the workstation on your desktop as an access to all the information you need and to letting you have that access on your own terms. The software developer who supplies that prize will not only have our thanks but rounds of applause from every hardware vendor in the industry. Expect IBM _ and the analysts who comment on it _ to happily lead that parade. By Amy D. Wohl; Wohl is president of Wohl Associates in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., and editor of ``The Wohl Report on End-User Computing'' newsletter. <<<>>> Title : Digesting noveau programm Author : Michael B. Cohn Source : CW Comm FileName: cohn9 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: I didn't take the possibility of a move seriously until they interviewed her a third time. It seemed too good _ tremendous opportunity, much more responsibility, almost twice the pay. But when I picked my wife up at the airport, she was beaming. ``I got it,'' she said. ``They want me. They want me to move there in six weeks.'' Of course I was pleased for her. But moving was another story. I had just landed two more sales accounts, and one of them was talking about purchasing a general ledger system. When I ran the situation by my sales manager, he assured me that a transfer was possible. ``We have a lot going on in that city,'' he said. ``Let me see what I can do.'' The good and the bad True to his word, a week later, the boss called me into his office. ``I've got good news and bad news,'' he said. I prepared for the worst. ``The good news is I can get you that transfer. Same salary, same seniority, same everything.'' I gulped hard. Looked like I didn't have an excuse for not wanting to move. ``The bad news,'' he said, ``is that the only positions down there are in programming. But you used to be in software development, and it's like riding a bicycle. You'll pick it up again.'' Programming? I hadn't programmed in 10 years. I liked selling software. I didn't like making it. But when I contacted my potential new manager, he assured me I would fit right in on his software development team. An exciting new project was starting up, and it would take only 10 months. He even promised me an extra-large cubicle. Four Mondays later, at 8 a.m., I was a programmer again. My new manager directed me to an extra-large cubicle, but regrettably, the whole development team was in it. No one looked a day over 25. Everyone wore wire-rimmed eyeglasses. They all went out for salad at lunch. There were no brown bags. No butt-filled ashtrays. No 12-year-old ties. This wasn't how I remembered data processing. That afternoon, Barry, the ``Lead Programmer,'' called me into his office. Pictures of expensive German cars lined his credenza. ``I've heard a lot about you,'' he said, running his thumbs underneath his suspenders. ``What kind of technical background do you have?'' ``Well, when I started, there were only about 10 of us in software development,'' I responded, thinking that this guy was probably still in junior high at the time. ``We did a lot of assembler and Cobol, and I was pretty handy with Basic.'' ``Oh no, Basic's so old-fashioned. We all use Basique now; it's much more contemporary.'' Barry cleaned his glasses with his silk tie. ``I advocate Cobol Light, myself _ one-third less coding than regular language. But tell me, what kind of stuff would you like to do for me?'' I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this situation. But it was temporary, I kept telling myself, until I could find something else. I decided to play along. ``Well, Barry, I'd better start by reading over the functional specifications for your new system. If you'd like, I could probably start grinding out some programming-level specs or finalize some report layouts. Or, if Cobol Light is not too difficult, I could start writing a program or two. Do you have any coding pads?'' Barry leaned back in his leather chair and laughed. ``Hold on, General. This isn't the old days, when you went blindly charging into battle.'' He pulled out a glossy burgundy notebook. ``We like to work efficiently now . . . use quality time and quality methods. We have productivity grids. Error-prediction models. Tiered-test scenarios. Resource curves.'' Barry flipped through the four-color graphs and pie charts in his three-ring notebook. None of the pages looked like Cobol Light to me. Planned programhood ``So first, we have to have a comprehensive strategy,'' Barry continued. ``We'll start with a development plan. And of course, we'll need a few weeks to evalute and select a project management software package. Then we'll work on the expected-error matrix. And we'll still need a Human Factors and Usability Plan, a Code Inspection Plan, a Productivity Measurement Plan and a plan for Plan Tracking.'' I hadn't planned for any of this. ``Barry,'' I said, ``I can appreciate the importance of all this front-end work. You can't write a system without a schedule. You can't write a system without a design. But I was told that this was just a 10-month project. When will we actually write the system?'' ``I'm not sure I follow you,'' Barry responded, as he laid out a professionally printed chart of colored boxes and lines. I've got over 30 man-months of writing to do just in Phase 1. Look at all these deliverables . . .'' ``Yes, but when do we write the code? ``Code?'' Barry winced. ``My people don't code. That's what we hire contractors for.'' He told me we'd discuss this matter later. He seemed a little upset. I headed back to the cubicle, a bit perplexed. Maybe things had changed since the old days. Maybe coding pads were passe. Maybe there were code generators and fourth-generation languages that churned all the source. Maybe my new teammates could explain all this to me. But it was 4:30 sharp, and everybody had gone home. By Michael B. Cohn; Cohn is a quality assurance representative based in Atlanta. <<<>>> Title : Pyramid Technology Corp. Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swpyrami Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Pyramid Technology Corp. has announced its entry-level database application development system. The product reportedly combines a single-processor Pyramid Technology Corp. computer with a choice of database management systems and application development tools from Informix Software, Inc., Oracle Corp., Sybase, Inc., Relational Technology, Inc. and Unify Corp. to provide a starter package for application development. The system supports up to 16 users and is priced from $110,000 to $125,000, depending on the database software. Pyramid Technology P.O. Box 7295 1295 Charleston Road Mountain View, Calif. 94039 415-965-7200 <<<>>> Title : Data storage A write-onc Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwoptime Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Data storage A write-once read-many optical disk drive series has been announced by Optimem, a subsidiary of Cipher Data Products, Inc. The 4000 series reportedly provides 3.9G bytes of capacity on a double-sided 12-in. optical disk. According to the vendor, the drives feature a data transfer rate of 723K byte/sec. and are suitable for permanent storage of extremely large amounts of data. The series is scheduled for delivery in the third quarter. The list price for the 4000 series with small computer systems interface (SCSI) controller is $17,950. Slave units that can be attached to the SCSI bus are priced at $15,800. Optimem 297 N. Bernardo Ave. Mountain View, Calif. 94043 415-961-1800 <<<>>> Title : 3M Co.'s data products di Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hw3mcorp Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: 3M Co.'s data products division has expanded its line of -in. data cartridges with the announcement of three enhanced full-size cartridges. The models reportedly replace 3M's existing DC600 XTD series and consist of the following: the 150M-byte DC6150 for use in the IBM's Application System/400, AT&T's 3B2/600 and Compaq Computer Corp.'s Deskpro 386; the DC6150 zetamat, a preformatted version of the 6150 cartridge; and the DC6037, a limited length cartridge for software distribution applications. The cartridges are priced comparably with the XTD series cartridges they replace. 3M 8200 Highwood Drive Minneapolis, Minn. 55438 800-888-1889 <<<>>> Title : Hewlett-Packard Co. has i Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwhp Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Hewlett-Packard Co. has introduced two HP-IB disk drives designed to add removable hard disk drive capability to the existing family of HP 796XB disk drives. The 152M-byte HP 9262B and the 304M-byte HP 9263B are priced at $9,600 and $14,050, respectively. They include a power supply and one 5 -in. Winchester-based removable-disk mechanism. HP 3000 Hanover St. Palo Alto, Calif. 94304 800-752-0900 <<<>>> Title : Cambex Corp. has reduced Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwcambex Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Cambex Corp. has reduced prices on its Stor/9000 Central Storage and Expanded Storage memories for IBM's Enterprise System/3090 mainframes. The Stor/9000 Central Storage has been reduced from $210,000 to $190,000 for a 32M-byte increment, the vendor said. The Stor/9000 Expanded Storage has been reduced from $175,000 to $145,000 for a 64M-byte increment. The company also offers a support plan including preinstallation planning, customer support and a multilevel sparing program. Cambex 360 Second Ave. Waltham, Mass. 02154 617-890-6000 <<<>>> Title : Printer Systems Corp. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwprinte Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Printer Systems Corp. has announced a 50% increase in printing speed for its twin-axial cable-compatible Prima TX dot matrix printer. The upgrade brings the rated speed of draft-quality printing to 324 char/sec., the company said. The Prima TX reportedly emulates the IBM 4214 and IBM 5224 impact printers and can also be attached to IBM remote cluster controllers. It is priced from $1,495, the vendor said. Printer Systems 9055 Comprint Court Gaithersburg, Md. 20877 301-258-5060 <<<>>> Title : Calcomp, Inc. has introdu Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwcalcom Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Calcomp, Inc. has introduced an E-size version of its Artisan pen plotter. According to the vendor, the Model 1025 is an 8-pen plotter capable of producing high-resolution drawings on cut-sheet paper or film. The device accommodates media widths up to 36 inches and works with several different computers. The plotter is priced at $6,395 and includes a 90-day warranty. Calcomp P.O. Box 3250 Anaheim, Calif. 92803. 714-821-2000 <<<>>> Title : Sutton Designs, Inc. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwsutton Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Sutton Designs, Inc. has expanded its MM-Series of uninterruptible power supply systems. The MM-Series Plus UPS line consists of five models offering plug-and-play technology, and each is capable of conversing with local-area networks and Unix and Xenix operating systems, according to the vendor. The units are available in 375-VA, 750-VA, 1,211-VA and 1,500-VA versions. Pricing ranges from $599 to $1,999. Sutton Designs 300 N. Tioga Ithaca, N.Y. 14850 607-277-4301 <<<>>> Title : An uninterruptible power Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwinstru Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: An uninterruptible power supply system designed for multiple, on-line microcomputers or a single minicomputer has been announced by Instrumentation and Control Systems, Inc. The Lifeline II provides battery backup for 25 minutes in case of a utility failure, the company said. It costs $2,780. ICS 520 Interstate Road Addison, Ill. 60101 312-543-6200 <<<>>> Title : A power-line surge suppre Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hwbhpowe Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: A power-line surge suppressor has been introduced by B.H. Power Products. Called Zero Surge, the product limits the overvoltage let-through to equipment to a maximum of 10% higher than normal, the company said. The unit incorporates six grounded outlets, a 6-ft line cord and a master switch. It costs $119. B.H. Power Products 2223 Rebecca Drive Hatfield, Pa. 19440 215-822-2989 <<<>>> Title : Ask Computer Systems, Inc Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swaskcom Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Ask Computer Systems, Inc. has designed an electronic interface designed to link Manman, its management information system for manufacturing companies, with an Intermec shop floor data collection system. Called Manman/Dataport, the interface is currently available for Digital Equipment Corp. VAX-based Manman users. The product reportedly accepts data transferred from the shop floor and updates the database accordingly. It is priced from $5,184 to $50,400, depending on configuration. Ask Computer P.O. Box 7640 2440 W. El Camino Real Mountain View, Calif. 94039 415-969-4442 <<<>>> Title : Recital Corp. has enhance Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swrecita Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Recital Corp. has enhanced Recital, its relational database management system and fourth-generation language. The product is compatible with Ashton-Tate Corp.'s Dbase language and offers Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS users the opportunity to port existing MS-DOS programs to the DEC environment. The software now includes recognition of Fox Software, Inc.'s Foxbase Plus syntax for arrays and user-defined functions, as well as support of the Clipper Select 0 command, the company said. Pricing ranges from $4,500 to $45,000. Recital 85 Constitution Lane Danvers, Mass. 01923 508-750-1066 <<<>>> Title : An interactive table edit Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swonline Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: An interactive table editor for IBM's DB2 Version 2.1 is now available from On-Line Software International, Inc. According to the vendor, Proedit Version 3.2 is used under IBM's ISPF teleprocessing monitor and is downward compatible with all previous releases of DB2. The product reportedly permits application developers to use ISPF commands when creating or editing DB2 or SQL/DS tables, thereby eliminating the need to to code SQL statements. The program is available for a one-time license fee of $18,500 per CPU. On-Line Software Fort Lee Executive Park Two Executive Drive Fort Lee, N.J. 07024 201-592-0009 <<<>>> Title : Innovative Computer Techn Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swinnova Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Innovative Computer Technologies has announced Version 1.1 of Diskview, its I/O monitoring software for Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS computers. The latest release reportedly includes additional qualifiers for flexible report formatting and redesigned displays. Both single-user and site licenses are available, with pricing ranging from $770 to $1,490. Innovative Computer Technologies Unit 32 2861 Sherwood Heights Drive Oakville, Ont. Canada. L6J 7K1 416-829-2020 <<<>>> Title : Intex Solutions, Inc. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swintexs Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Intex Solutions, Inc. has announced that Professor Ray Fair's econometric model of the U.S. ecomomy, Fairmodel, will be incorporated into Troll, Intex's forecasting decision-support system for IBM mainframes. Scheduled to ship this month, the product was designed for use by banks, financial institutions, government agencies and universities to forecast the U.S. economy under various scenarios. According to the vendor, the software runs under IBM VM/CMS, MVS/TSO or MTS operating systems, with prices ranging from $3,000 to $5,000, depending on configuration. A 60% discount is available for universities. Intex 161 Highland Ave. Needham, Mass. 02194 617-449-6222 <<<>>> Title : AOK Software Products, In Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swaoksof Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: AOK Software Products, Inc. has announced Release 2.4 of AOK.abc Spreadsheet, a Lotus Development Corp.-compatible spreadsheet designed specifically for Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS users. The latest release reportedly includes three-dimensional graphics, minimal repainting and on-line tutorial functions. Prices on a Microvax II two-user and five-user license are $1,400 and $2,500, respectively. AOK Software Suite 102 1305 Wiley Road Schaumburg, Ill. 60173 312-884-7123 <<<>>> Title : Softscience Corp. has rel Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swsoftsc Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Softscience Corp. has released Convenience Plus Unix Front End: A Graphic Interface to Unix. The program reportedly performs file management and administrative functions and produces a graphic tree image of file storage that can be accessed using arrow keys or a mouse. The software is said to be compatible with Sun Microsystems, Inc., AT&T and other Unix-based systems and is priced at $399. Softscience Box 42905 Tucson, Ariz. 85733 602-326-4679 <<<>>> Title : A graphics package develo Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swqubixg Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: A graphics package developed for Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun 3 users has been announced by Qubix Graphics Systems, Inc. Leonardo provides graphics, drawing, text and forms capabilities and allows the import and export of files from other systems. The product is compatible with Adobe Systems, Inc. Postscript-based printers and is priced at $1,200. Qubix 1255 Parkmoor Ave. San Jose, Calif. 95126 408-292-4000 <<<>>> Title : Rem Associates has announ Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swremass Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Rem Associates has announced Release 6 of Remdoc, its automated documentation package for the IBM System/36. Release 6 allows users to create files and produce reports for up to 30 libraries at one time or to select reports individually and create only the files necessary for that report. Remdoc Release 6 is available in English, French, Spanish and German versions and costs $1,250. REM Box 527, Village Station New York, N.Y. 10014 212-243-2416 <<<>>> Title : Goal Systems Internationa Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swgoalsy Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Goal Systems International, Inc. has announced Version 2.00.03 of Mastercat/VSE, the company's on-line and batch VSAM catalog navigation tool. According to the vendor, the software now permits on-line editing under IBM CICS of any VSAM cluster. An audit-trail facility is included. Permanent license fees range from $3,750 to $4,000, depending on CPU size. Goal Systems 7965 N. High St. Columbus, Ohio 43235 800-848-4640 <<<>>> Title : Promod, Inc., a supplier Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swpromod Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Promod, Inc., a supplier of computer-aided software engineering (CASE) and computer-aided programming tools, has introduced the Promod/2167A option for use with Version 1.7 of the company's CASE family of products. The vendor said the option automatically prepares U.S. Department of Defense 2176A-compliant reports. Pricing for the 2167A option will vary with the configurations and size of the system. Promod 23685 Birtcher Drive Lake Forest, Calif. 92630 714-855-3046 <<<>>> Title : Software Systems Design, Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: swsoftwa Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Software Systems Design, Inc. has announced three integrated computer-aided software engineering tools for testing large and medium-scale Ada programs. Collectively named Testgen, the set consists of the following: a design-review tool that is reportedly capable of identifying all program paths; the test-strategy generator, developed to aid users in evaluating the economies of various test strategy trade-offs; and the test-coverage analyzer to monitor execution of the Ada code. According to the vendor, Testgen costs $6,950. Software Systems 3627 Padua Ave. Claremont, Calif. 91711 714-625-6147 <<<>>> Title : Unix fervor overruns OS/2 Author : Douglas Barney Source : CW Comm FileName: work Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: This war is fun. Wars between real people with real weapons are too painful to be much fun. But companies vying for dollars is something few would do without. These skirmishes create better products at better prices and leave those that do not serve the customer as casualties. There are still too many messy wars over land, politics and religion that should stop. But there is one I wish would never end: the fight for the desktop. This conflict pits all the workstation vendors against one another and then lines these folks up against the personal computer vendors in search of high-end sales. Everyone, it seems, is an aggressor. A surprising participant is the more than 20-year-old Unix operating system. Nobody used to care about this big batch of code. Until recently, the only people brave enough to use it were academic types with long scraggly beards. It seemed that the longer the beard, the more the person knew about Unix. Today, neatly groomed yuppie stockbrokers, architects and designers use Unix. And in many cases, they appear to like it. Now, every vendor and his mother are out pushing Unix on fast, visually appealing workstations. Prices are going down, power is going up, and customers are getting happy. Even DEC is doing some smart things on the desktop. This is bad, bad timing for Microsoft, with its lagging effort to kick workstations where it hurts _ right in the operating system. Understanding that MS-DOS finally ran out of gas about five years ago, Microsoft began crafting its eventual replacement. But the firm took too long to overbuild the new operating system, OS/2. Now OS/2 is being threatened by the ill-mannered Unix hordes that are snatching away desktops with reckless abandon. Despite the disarray among Unix vendors and the fact that there will probably never be a standard, Unix is taking a hunk out of OS/2's backside. That is because Unix has everything that OS/2 has: support for a large memory, a graphical interface and multitasking. It also has what OS/2 wants: applications. It's time for Microsoft to fight back with applications and OS/2 enhancements. But instead, the company itself is cannibalizing OS/2. Microsoft is hopping on the Unix bandwagon with a major investment in Xenix distributor The Santa Cruz Operation, which has just finished a major rewrite of Unix for Intel's 80386 and is pitching in with a definition of the Open Software Foundation look and feel. The OS/2 camp is relying on Intel to continually boost the speed of its 386 chip and get the 80486 and whatever other numbers out the door. The Unix camp couldn't give a hoot about specific chips. They've got a selection of exciting chips with sleep-inducing names like Sparc (Sun's Scalable Processor Architecture), Motorola's 68030 and 88000 and Intel's I860. OS/2 isn't dead yet. It just looks peaked and wheezes a lot. Meanwhile, Unix still has its share of problems that OS/2 may exploit. In particular, Unix is hanging on to arcane and ridiculous commands that users have to know to fully exploit its power. Sounds like a good war to this correspondent. There are three sides to every story. Every time an announcement is made, the vendors gather marketing types to describe how the product is in tune with the market and technical types to explain the breakthrough in terms only a theoretical physicist could understand. It is often only months later, at a sordid industry conference, that company officials caught off-guard explain what really happened. Don't believe it? Then read the following examples. The Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) announcement. Marketing says, ``Users asked us to develop a system that would preserve their investment in old boards with a system that is more advanced than the IBM Micro Channel Architecture and that will ship in a timely fashion. We've done that and more with the EISA bus, thanks to the input of every single one of our customers.'' Techies say, ``Without disk-caching, the Micro Channel bus master, which is mainly a 16-bit chip anyway, is slow compared with the throughput our large boards will give _ nanosecondwise, anyway.'' What the EISA guys would admit if really honest: ``IBM is going to charge us to clone the Micro Channel, which is hard to do anyway, so we thought we'd do something different. Besides, our customers are too stupid to care that we'll ship three years after IBM. After all, we control the market, uh, don't we?'' Microsoft's Presentation Manager. Marketing says, ``Users asked us to develop a state-of-the-art interface that will cod dle end users while giving more power than any human ever needed.'' Techies say, ``With the inclusion of a new imaging model, your Bezier curves look better than Bo Derek's, especially when the interprocess communications running in protected mode are threading real-time p-code your way via the unlimited I/O that advanced buses allow.'' What they would admit to on the q.t.: ``IBM asked us to write the biggest MIPS sucker possible so they could sell PS/2s with lots and lots of expensive memory.'' Lotus's 1-2-3, Release 3.0. Marketing says, ``Users asked us to develop a state-of-the-art spreadsheet that is fully compatible for the most part with the millions of billions of models designed by our precious customers, while at the same time giving customers features that they have not even thought to ask for. Of course, the small business market will love the fact that it runs on a $12 million IBM 3090.'' Techies say, ``We've optimized the scheduling algorithms and, of course, stretched the limits of the hexadecimal underpinnings of interrupt 8905 to provide, shall we say, a bandwidth like no other.'' What they would admit if pressed for the truth: ``If you must know, we wrote the thing under OS/2 and couldn't squeeze it back into DOS. Now are you satisfied?'' By Douglas Barney; Barney is a Computerworld senior editor, PCs and workstations. <<<>>> Title : Microsoft biting its nose Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: ostwoie Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: REDMOND, Wash. _ Microsoft Corp. recently defended its lagging OS/2 operating system against the Unix onslaught by describing an upcoming series of dramatic OS/2 enhancements, including the ability to run on non-Intel Corp. microprocessors. But at the same time, impending improvements to today's Microsoft Windows may cause OS/2 to lose even more steam. The plans were presented last month to a contingent of reporters and analysts who trekked to Microsoft's headquarters here for a rundown of the firm's system software plans. While continuing to see a bright future for its MS-DOS operating system, currently used by 25 million people, Microsoft officials described an environment in which MS-DOS can no longer cut the mustard. Instead, users will run multiple, visually appealing applications simultaneously, often swapping data between programs on the fly. It is a world in which OS/2 and the Presentation Manager catch on. Clearly, company officials are talking about the future. This future will not be limited to today's high-end PCs. In fact, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates promised that OS/2 will run on non-Intel microprocessor-based machines. Gates, however, declined to offer a specific date. Some of Microsoft's goals, however, are uncertain, while others are already starting to be met. Microsoft Windows, a product long in the making and with an even longer sales cycle, is now catching on. Microsoft claims that this graphical user interface is outselling Apple Computer, Inc.'s graphically oriented Macintosh computer. The company also claimed that key Macintosh applications will be available for Windows by next month. Even though Microsoft is hot on OS/2, it will continue enhancing MS-DOS and Windows to serve the low-end market. Enhancements for both include the ability to operate with less memory and more support for multiple applications. Some now believe that these enhancements, particularly for Windows, will dramatically slow the transition to OS/2 and Presentation Manager. Windows 3.0, which was demonstrated at the seminar, opens up the memory space of MS-DOS by running in the so-called protected mode, a feature of Intel 80286 and higher chips that provides up to 16M bytes of random-access memory. This protected mode is exactly the selling point of Presentation Manager, except that it will require about 2M bytes of RAM just to load itself. Windows, on the other hand, will be able to use this memory for data and programs. Many now view the Windows strategy as a stopgap measure that will enhance the usability of PCs while OS/2 struggles for acceptance. Rod Zimmerman, marketing chief at Gupta Technologies, Inc., which is developing for Windows, wonders if users will move to Presentation Manager, given Windows' upcoming tweaks. Nonetheless, Gupta is deep into a port of its SQLwindows development system to the Presentation Manager. OS/2 sales are currently lagging for several reasons, chief among them being the lack of compelling applications. Many are also waiting for a version that exploits the 32-bit capabilities of the Intel 80386 chip, a promise that will not be fulfilled until next year, Microsoft said. Microsoft also promised that 22 Presentation Manager-specific applications will begin to ship in the first half of this year. These include Micrografx, Inc.'s Designer, a version of Microrim, Inc.'s R:base, Gupta Technologies' SQLwindows, Blyth Software, Inc.'s Omnis Quartz, Dataease International, Inc.'s Dataease OS/2, Aldus Corp.'s Pagemaker, Microsoft's Excel and Digital Research, Inc.'s GEM Draw. A sore point for many users has been MS-DOS' rather primitive file system, which allows only eight-character file names. That will change with a high-performance file system that is also more flexible. The system will be able to create huge disk partitions and will allow users to name files with more intuitive, longer names. More important than long file names nowadays is security. OS/2 chief architect Gordon Letwin disclosed the firm's goal of developing a file system to protect against viruses and ensure data privacy. Microsoft is also pushing its new GPI, an imaging model obscured so far by OS/2's other features. GPI offers advanced area filling, color management and curve and line drawing as well as font rendering and management, all of which will be exploited over time by software vendors. GPI will also eventually do battle with Adobe's popular Postscript page description language. QMS, Inc. plans to ship a GPI laser printer in small quantities later this year. Like Postscript, GPI will be able to run on the printer itself for more efficient operation. But in order for GPI to succeed, Presentation Manager applications will have to catch on. GPI will also battle Adobe Systems, Inc.'s Display Postscript as a screen description language. Microsoft also promised to enhance its still unshipped SQL Server database server with transparent distributed updates and transparent distributed queries. By Douglas Barney, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Stanford shells out Macs Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: stanford Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: PALO ALTO, Calif. _ There is a new arrival in San Francisco Bay, and it made its journey from Russia to California on foot. The discovery was made by the engineering department of Stanford University, working with the U.S. Geological Survey on a study of the ecosystem of San Francisco Bay. The new settler is a hardy Russian clam whose main advantages are an ability to adjust to almost any environment and the single large foot it uses to propel itself. Stanford and federal researchers discovered the immigrant using a highly sensitive measuring instrument called a velocity sensor, which records movement and is so sensitive that it can detect the vibrations of feeding clams. The velocity sensor is connected to an Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh II. Using Labview, a program from National Instruments Co. that was modified by Stanford researchers, the Mac II can translate impulses sent from the velocity sensor into actual data. Once recorded, the data can be charted and graphed. Clam feed A new type of clam might not seem a significant finding. However, Stanford professors Jeffrey Koseff and Stephen Monismith said its appearance is likely to have a serious impact on the bay. While the two existing species of bay clams feed on the algae prevalent there, the Russian clam feeds on plankton, which has been a source of sustenance for certain kinds of Bay fish. Competition for plankton could change the bay's fish population. ``If you want to understand the San Francisco Bay ecology, you have to understand it from the ground up,'' Koseff said. The Macintosh is playing a key role in Stanford's engineering department as both a research and an instructional tool, according to Robert Eustis, a mechanical engineering professor who manages the Mac program within the department. Engineering has 250 Macs today; another 200 are on the way. By Julie Pitta, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Mac IIX reveals moderate, Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 313revu2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Although not revolutionary, Apple Computer, Inc.'s Macintosh IIX is a firm step in the right direction. It features built-in memory management, a floppy drive that reads and writes all popular disk formats and an improved CPU performance that, in tests, far exceeded the announced 15% increase. The Mac IIX is powered by a Motorola, Inc. 68030 processor that runs at 15.7 MHz. It is teamed with a Motorola 68882 math coprocessor. The 68030 has memory management built in. The IIX's main logic board still has sockets for eight single LU line memory modules of random-access memory chips. The new read-only memory chips are now housed in a single SIMM socket in place of the four dual in-line socketed packages found in the Mac II. The other big change from the Mac II is the 3.5-in. high density floppy drive. With a new controller, it can read, write and initialize disks using Macintosh, MS-DOS and OS/2 floppy formats, the latter two via Apple File Exchange. The Macintosh operating system has some new features, including Multifinder, which allows multiple applications to be open at the same time, and Macromaker, which can record and recall any combination of keystrokes and mouse action. Although the Mac IIX's 68030 runs at the same speed as the Motorola 68020 that powers the Mac II, several factors serve to enhance overall CPU performance. The first is the existence of a 256K-byte hardware data and instruction cache. This is in addition to a similar instruction cache that is also found on the 68020. Second, the 68882 math coprocessor is said to be twice as fast as the Mac II's 68881 chip, due to its efficient pipelining. The built-in memory management unit (MMU) contains a subset of the 68881 instruction set but provides the same virtual-memory and memory-protection capabilities, which are necessary if you intend to use the A/UX operating system; it will also allow all Mac IIX systems to use future Macintosh multiprocessing operating systems without additional hardware. This built-in MMU also does memory address translations. The Apple hard disks available for the IIX are the same as those available for the Mac II. The FDHD drive is no faster than the 800K-byte floppy drive found in the Mac II. You can realize improved performance, however, by using high-density disks that store 1.4M bytes. We tested several software applications. Recalculations and sorts using Microsoft's Excel were faster by about 33% over the Mac II, but be sure to get Microsoft's patch that allows Excel to recognize the 68882. Scrolling tests showed improvements in the 25% to 38% range with Microsoft Word, Aldus Corp.'s Pagemaker, Aldus Freehand and Claris Corp.'s Macdraw II. All of the products worked as expected; you are advised to keep your software up-to-date. The IIX's system board has room for 4M bytes of additional RAM for a total of 8M bytes. Further expansion is available thanks to the small computer system interface port, two serial ports, six full-length Nubus slots, two Apple desktop bus ports and a sound jack. There's another drive bay for a second floppy. The Mac IIX is accompanied by eight disks, four manuals, a quick-reference card and a getting-started poster. The documentation is useful, well-written and easy to understand. Setting up the IIX is no different than setting up a Mac II. External ports are clearly marked, and cables are simple to plug in. A single screw secures the lid, making it easier to open the system. Apple provides a fine assortment of software tools for installing system software on your hard disk. The IIX, with the current system software, is even easier to use than its predecessors. Features that add to ease of use include speed, Multifinder and the high-density floppy. The Mac IIX comes with a 90-day warranty for defective parts, which is shorter than the standard one year for most personal computers. You may purchase extended coverage for up to three years. Apple relies heavily on its authorized Apple dealers for support. Organizations with large numbers of systems can become, at no extra cost, ``servicing owners'' with the same access to Apple support as the dealers and even dealer prices on spare parts. A IIX with 4M bytes of RAM and a single floppy drive has a list price of $6,969. With an 80M-byte hard disk, the price is $7,869. A kit that replaces a Mac II's floppy drive, controller and ROM costs $599. For an additional $2,199, you can replace the Mac II system board. <<<>>> Title : Project Manager widens ap Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 313revu1 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Software Publishing Corp.'s Harvard Project Manager II is often eclipsed by more sophisticated and lower cost project management packages. Version 3.01 offers enough significant features to appeal to professional planners but still serves casual users who enjoy the program's simple operation. Harvard's unique new Fast Track mode lets business managers arrange tasks on a time line very quickly without entering unnecessary details. New, more elaborate planning features for advanced users include individual resource calendars, penalty costs and quicker calculations. Outline format In addition to Fast Track plans, work can be organized into a familiar text outline form to augment the work-breakdown tree available in the previous version. Plans are also created directly on the Gantt chart or Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) network. Finally, there is a forms-view feature to add details about many activities simultaneously. You can switch among formats with one command. All methods are connected, so what you create in one window is reflected in others. Project size is still limited by available conventional random-access memory. Subprojects help you deal with larger jobs. Resource-leveling occurs across all projects. Version 3.01 offers an updated printer list that includes the Hewlett-Packard Co. Laserjet Series II, Deskjet and Paintjet and Calcomp Corp. E-size plotters. Printing speed has been optimized and offers 26 report types. You can group reports for batch printing. Other new features include import-export capabilities, three zoom levels and a Find command that shows how one task is related to other activities. The Fast Track mode enables the user to design a project quickly, although editing is not always so straightforward. The Work Breakdown Outliner lets you set 99 indentation levels (10 are visible). Levels and subordinate tasks move without disturbing their relationship. One extra touch is the customized code field, which adds to the preset Work Breakdown Structure numbering scheme. Graphics are limited to the IBM extended character set. Any two charts or forms can appear using split windows. Subprojects also have constraints. For instance, they cannot be linked to a milestone. On the plus side, several options can create subprojects. Needs at least 80286 PC Harvard Project Manager 3.01 keeps you waiting with long calculation times and its general operation. You will want to run it on an Intel Corp. 80286-based PC, at a minimum. There is no provision during leveling to work on just a portion of the project or to manually override the system's decision to reallocate resources or postpone jobs. Harvard Project Manager's manual combines general project management concepts with details about the program's operation. Included are an interactive tutorial, a quick reference card and a workbook for use in plan ning a project. Error message boxes give precise information about an error and how to correct it. Installation is simple and, in keeping with many Software Publishing products, even advanced features are, for the most part, easy to learn. Context-sensitive, on-line help displays detailed instructions about the current form, chart or report. Screen forms are clearly organized. Harvard Project Manager is one of the few PC-based packages that consolidate information from many projects into one report. However, ease-of-use enhancements and a generally solid design are offset somewhat by sluggish operation, the lack of some advanced editing capabilities and the distribution of some features throughout several menus. Software Publishing offers unlimited non-toll-free telephone support with knowledgeable technical support people from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific time, Monday through Friday. Corporate site licensing plans, a newsletter, an electronic bulletin board system and training workshops are also available. Registered users receive low-cost updates. At $695, Harvard Project Manager 3.01 is at the top of the price curve for its class. Creating a small project is relatively easy, but professional planners will be frustrated with the product's slow execution speed. <<<>>> Title : HP boosts resolution in L Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 313revu3 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new printer, the Laserjet IID, is based on the Laserjet Series II and features 300 by 300 dot/in. resolution and duplex capability, among other improvements. The IID is designed around an 8 page/min Canon U.S.A., Inc. RX printer engine. The most visible change in the design is the addition of a second paper tray that doubles paper capacity to 400 sheets. An envelope feeder can also be attached. To accommodate binding two-sided output on either the top or left edge of the page, the IID can print text on both sides of the paper in right-side-up position, or where the second side of each sheet is upside-down in both landscape and portrait orientation. HP also improved font handling so that any font can be printed in landscape or portrait orientations. This model offers greater internal font choices, including Courier in 10- and 12-point medium, bold and italic styles as well as the 8-point Line Printer font. The IID's S2 font cartridge adds Times Roman in 8- and 12-point medium, bold and italic as well as 14-point Helvetica bold. The IID comes with two font cartridge slots. It has no font or macro limitations. The Laserjet IID ranks near the top of the list on all speed tests when printing single sided. When printing double-sided, it is still an impressive performer. Output quality is also very good, featuring smoothly formed text, legible type in small point sizes and solid print density. HP already sports an impressive list of software using the IID's special features and has good font support. As with all Laserjets, the IID can emulate a standard line printer. While the new features require more memory to implement, the standard configuration has been expanded to 640K bytes, leaving the same amount of random-access memory available to the user. Documentation for the IID is complete and easy to understand. The binder-style user's guide includes a discussion of fonts, a troubleshooting guide with a description of all on-line error messages and front-panel operations, tips on using a few popular software packages and a detailed installation guide. A separate large-format, pictorial setup guide and quick-reference card offer easy access to specific information. The IID features solid workmanship and rugged design. It comes with a one-year parts and labor warranty, with service handled through HP-authorized dealers or direct from the factory. A variety of extended service contracts are available. HP also provides users with an unlimited, though not toll-free, technical support line. Technical support is available through HP or its dealers, and the service is accurate and helpful. Despite its $4,225 price tag, the HP Laserjet IID is a good value, especially for users who want a full-featured laser printer but do not need the duty cycle and speed of departmental printers. <<<>>> Title : Instaplan Corp. has updat Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micinsta Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Instaplan Corp. has updated its project management software package for business applications. Running on IBM Personal Computers, Personal System/2s and compatibles, Instaplan 2.0 incorporates multiproject outlining capabilities and a project-history database function, according to the company. Instaplan 2.0 has a price tag of $99. It requires 640K bytes of random-access memory and a hard disk. Instaplan Suite 311 655 Redwood Highway Mill Valley, Calif. 94941 800-852-7526 <<<>>> Title : Quadram Corp. has announc Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micquadr Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Quadram Corp. has announced plans to bundle Samna Corp.'s graphical word processor, Ami, with the QuadVGA Spectra graphics card. According to Quadram, the three-quarter-size graphics card can be installed in IBM Personal Computers, XTs, ATs and compatibles, and comes with high-resolution drivers for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Aldus Corp.'s Pagemaker and other applications. When combined with Ami, the product will reportedly provide users with resolutions of either 800 by 600 or 1024 by 768 pixels. The bundled product is available for $549 through May 31. Quadram One Quad Way Norcross, Ga. 30093 404-923-6666 <<<>>> Title : Applied Systems and Techn Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micappli Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Applied Systems and Technologies, Inc. said it has enhanced its Maxpage desktop publishing, page-makeup software package. Version 1.2 of Maxpage reportedly includes a graphics adjustment function that allows imported pictures or paintings to be reduced as well as enlarged. Speed and text-handling functions have also been increased, according to the vendor. The program runs on Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh computers and is priced at $89. Applied Systems 227M Hallenback Road Cleveland, N.Y. 13042 315-675-8584 <<<>>> Title : Western Digital Corp. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micweste Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Western Digital Corp. has added two higher capacity disk drives to its family of external Preference Hard Disk AP products for the Apple Computer, Inc. market. Available in 80M- and 120M-byte capacities, the new drives measure approximately 3 in. high by 6.5 in. wide by 8 in. deep, according to the company. The series is compatible with both Apple II and Macintosh computers and also includes 20M- and 40M-byte storage configurations. The 80M-byte version is priced at $1,695, and the 120M-byte drive costs $2,395. Both are scheduled for delivery in the second quarter. Western Digital 2445 McCabe Way Irvine, Calif. 92714 714-863-0102 <<<>>> Title : A language tool kit for A Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micabrax Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: A language tool kit for Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh users has been announced by Abraxas Software, Inc. The product reportedly allows the Apple Hypertalk object-oriented language to be embedded into software applications and runs in conjunction with the company's Macyacc software. Macyacc generates source code for building object-oriented language products. The Hypertalk tool kit is included with Macyacc and is priced at $395. Abraxas P.O. Box 19586 Portland, Ore. 97219 503-244-5253 <<<>>> Title : Ventel, Inc. has announce Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micvente Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Ventel, Inc. has announced a 2,400 bit/ sec. internal modem developed for Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh II computers. The Mac2400E Internal Modem is said to be Nubus-compatible and reportedly implements both X.PC and MNP Levels 2, 3 and 4 error-correction protocols. Features include autodial and autoanswer, automatic fallback and self-testing capabilities. The unit is priced at $449, which includes a five-year warranty. Ventel 2121 Zanker Road San Jose, Calif. 95131 800-538-5121 <<<>>> Title : Realia, Inc. has released Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micreali Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Realia, Inc. has released Realia Cobol 3.10, an enhanced version of its optimizing Cobol compiler for the IBM Personal Computer and Personal System/2 series, the vendor said. The upgrade reportedly includes a transactional file-sharing utility that allows Realia Cobol applications to access files in a network and also guarantees sequential consistency. The latest release is priced at $995, and registered 3.00 users under maintenance contract will receive a free, automatic upgrade. Realia 10 S. Riverside Plaza Chicago, Ill. 60606 312-346-0642 <<<>>> Title : Peer Protocols, Inc. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micpeerp Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Peer Protocols, Inc. has announced the Peer-1000 series of IBM Personal Computer AT tester products. The devices were designed specifically for testing hard disk drives that have embedded AT controllers. A technical mode is reportedly provided to allow interactive test sequence preparation using menu selections. The products are available in configurations to accommodate from one to four drives and are priced from $1,950 to $4,950. Peer Protocols Suite 101 3176 Pullman Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626 714-662-1929 <<<>>> Title : Piiceon, Inc. has expande Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micmaxte Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Piiceon, Inc. has expanded its family of 32-bit, 1M- and 4M-byte Superam Memory Modules. According to the vendor, the 4M-byte, 32-bit Superam System Memory Boards were designed specifically for Compaq Computer Corp. 386 and 386/20E machines. The boards reportedly can be combined with either Piiceon or Compaq memory modules for a total system memory configuration of 13M bytes in the Compaq 386 and a maximum 16M bytes for the 386/20E. The memory boards are priced at $2,579 each. Piiceon P.O. Box 61730 San Jose, Calif. 95161 408-432-8030 <<<>>> Title : Data Translation, Inc. ha Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: micdatat Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Data Translation, Inc. has announced an IBM Personal Computer AT-compatible board that is capable of capturing, processing and storing up to four 512- by 512- by 8-bit images from standard video or slow-scan devices in real time, according to the company. Targeted for high-speed processing-intensive applications, the DT2862 Arithmetic Frame Grabber incorporates 1M byte of on-board memory, a built-in 8-bit arithmetic logic unit and high-speed data ports for connection to dedicated processor boards, according to Data Translation. The DT2862 Arithmetic Frame Grabber is priced at $3,995. Data Translation 100 Locke Drive Marlboro, Mass. 01752 508-481-3700 <<<>>> Title : Gates knows no fear Author : Douglas Barney Source : CW Comm FileName: warring Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: At its recent System Software Seminar, Microsoft officials tackled head-on the threats to OS/2 posed by Unix and Apple's Macintosh. Contrary to the belief of an increasing number of pundits that Unix will steal OS/2's thunder, Microsoft remained firm. Company Chairman Bill Gates maintained that Unix has so far only been successful in multiuser applications and niche markets such as academic research and engineering. He ought to know. Through its partners, Microsoft has probably shipped more copies of Unix than anyone. Gates argued that, up till now, Unix has not made much headway as a standard operating system for the desktop. With the various versions of Unix kicking around and the wars over a common interface, software developers do not know where to turn, he said. Still, with an increasing industrywide level of support for Unix, Microsoft will have to work doubly hard to establish OS/2. The slow pace of desktop software development for Unix will allow OS/2 to gain the upper hand, Microsoft officials said. But even if Unix does cripple the OS/2 market, Microsoft is well-positioned. Besides its Xenix and other offerings, the firm plans to ship a Unix-based version of OS/2 Presentation Manager by the first quarter of next year. The product will reportedly provide a high level of compatibility with OS/2 Presentation Manager applications. According to Gates, the Macintosh has been successful in niche markets such as desktop publishing but stands little chance of taking the market away from the world of IBM Personal Computers and compatibles. Two issues will keep the Mac at bay, Gates argued. First, the Mac is only available from a single vendor. Perhaps more importantly, the Mac has run into technical limitations such as its inability to multitask and its primitive networking. Microsoft, however, remains the leading software vendor in the Mac market. DOUGLAS BARNEY <<<>>> Title : PCs gain Hypercard-like f Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: hpad Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: SYRACUSE, N.Y. _ Software that brings features similar to Apple Computer, Inc.'s Hypercard to IBM Personal Computers and compatibles has been introduced by Brightbill-Roberts and Co. Called Hyperpad (the pad part stands for personal application designer), the package's features include information-filled fields and buttons that can be moved, cut, pasted and linked associatively, the vendor said. According to Infocorp, a market research firm in Santa Clara, Calif., there are currently 20 million DOS-based PC users in the U.S., with an additional 50 million users that will purchase the machines during the next six years. ``These are the folks we're after, those with the 286-based machines on down,'' said Steve Brightbill, president of Brightbill-Roberts. ``We have designed a product with an open authoring system architecture that can be customized for either the casual user or the serious corporate developer.'' Hyperpad uses buttons, fields, pages and other objects to build personal application designs, thereby allowing users to personalize their PC interface, create training materials and manage corporate and personal information. The package provides screen-painting functions for layout design and an object-oriented, Hypertalk-like scripting language. The language reportedly can be used to create custom databases, interactive tutorials, corporate PC interfaces and a variety of other applications. It can also be configured as a front end to corporate mainframes or as a data entry interface to several DOS applications. The user may elect to use either a mouse or the keyboard. The product does not require a graphics card. The package is scheduled to ship in 30 days and is priced at $100. It will be sold directly by the company and distributed through retailer channels. By Sally Cusack, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Computers drafted in drug Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: cocaineb Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Barbara Thomas, a professor of nursing at the University of Iowa, has enlisted computers in the war against drugs. Thomas, who uses computers to augment her own nursing research, is the author of a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program about cocaine abuse. The program is published and marketed by Substance Abuse Education, Inc., which is a division of Medi-Sim, Inc., an Edwardsville, Kan.-based company that develops health education software. Called Substance Abuse CAI, the $39.95 package consists of four modules and is sold to elementary and junior high schools across the country. It is also sold to private organizations that use it to enhance their drug education programs. Personal concern Thomas chose to concentrate on the topic of drug abuse because of her personal concern about the subject. Drug abuse is also a sensitive subject that students may prefer to learn about on an individualized basis, which is the primary appeal to her program, according to Thomas. ``It's just between the student and the computer as to what information the student wants [to learn], and that might take some of the embarrassment out of talking about [drug addiction] in class,'' she says. The interactive software, which can be used on an Apple Computer, Inc. Apple II as well as on IBM Personal Computers and compatibles, explains concepts such as abuse, addiction and withdrawal; lists the hazards of using any form of cocaine; describes the development of dependency on the drug; and identifies the physiological and psychological effects of cocaine use. In addition to tutorial elements, the package includes a simulation, complete with color graphics, that gives the user an up-close view of the outcomes of cocaine addiction. Helps teachers, parents In addition to teaching students about drug abuse, the program may also help teachers and parents initiate a discussion of the topic after a student has used the package, Thomas says. ``There's an awful lot of talk about drug education, but there aren't very many teachers that feel comfortable with it,'' she says. However, she stressed that the package should only be used to augment classroom instruction on drug abuse, not replace it. The product is an outgrowth of a series of programs Thomas created between 1984 and 1986 for nursing education. The programs were part of a microcomputer project funded by a $390,000 grant from the Bureau of Health Profession's Division of Nursing in Washington, D.C. The programs were concerned with marijuana, alcohol and psychoactive substances, which include cocaine. Thomas says she hopes to take a developmental leave of absence from the University of Iowa next year to research whether her programs are actually changing students' behavior or attitudes toward substance abuse. By Sharon Baker, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Mosaic trying to best Lot Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: mosaic2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. _ A spreadsheet maker that gained fame from being sued by Lotus Development Corp. has now tried to do Lotus one better. Mosaic Software, Inc. has released a new version of its Twin spreadsheet software that it claims offers an alternative to the still unshipped Release 3.0 of Lotus' 1-2-3. Dubbed Twin Level III, the personal computer-based product reportedly runs on IBM Personal Computer XTs, unlike 1-2-3 Release 3.0, which will require an Intel Corp. 80286 or faster microprocessor. Twin Level III requires 375K bytes of memory and will not need a hard disk, according to Richard Bezjian, president of Mosaic. It is fully compatible with 1-2-3 Versions 1A and 2.0. Reaching beyond Bezjian said the limited hardware requirements of Twin Level III will allow his company to satisfy a substantially larger market than potential 1-2-3 Release 3.0 users. ``Lotus' Version 3.0 will be a disappointment to many people,'' Bezjian said. ``It will require a DOS extender, an Intel 80286 or 80386 machine and a hard disk. Folks using the XT or vanilla PC won't be able to use it, which is definitely to our advantage.'' Twin Level III offers several capabilities not currently found in other spreadsheet packages, Mosaic said. Chief among these are the program's user-definable functions, which allow the user to build and define any function without the aid of compiling and debugging add-on kits. The program also includes several functions similar to Microsoft Corp.'s Excel, including file linking, three-dimensional capabilities and pull-down menus. Features that are not expected to be found in Release 3.0 include the ability to define function keys and display their definitions on screens at all times. The amount of memory available is also constantly displayed. Finally, users can program Twin III to save files automatically at predetermined times. Minimum recalculation and background recalculation speed-enhancement functions have also been incorporated into the product, Mosaic said. Those features are intended to save time by recalculating only spreadsheet cells that have been changed and by allowing the user to work in the foreground while recalculation continues. Lotus sued Mosaic and Paperback Software, Inc. in Berkeley, Calif., in 1986 for allegedly copying the look and feel of 1-2-3. Neither case has come to trial. Twin Level III is currently available for $249. <<<>>> Title : Samsung airs diskless wor Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: samsung Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Samsung Information Systems America has announced a 12-MHz diskless workstation that is based on the Intel Corp. 80286 microprocessor. The PCterminal/286 has four expansion slots and comes standard with 640K bytes of random-access memory, expandable to 15M bytes, according to the vendor. The workstation also includes a Novell, Inc. Netware-compatible boot-programmable read-only memory that allows it to boot directly from a Netware file server. The CPU can run at either 6 or 12 MHz. According to the company, the expansion slots allow users to install other network interface cards in one of the available slots. Support is also available for IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter and Video Graphics Array interfaces. The PCterminal/286 is slated for delivery in the second quarter and will carry a price tag of $1,795, according to the vendor. <<<>>> Title : PC users can expand to wo Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: zenith Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Looking to expand into work group and departmental computing but unwilling to give up on your investment in personal computer hardware and software? Zenith Data Systems has introduced a family of work group systems called the Z-1000 that use multiple Intel Corp. 80386 microprocessors, a 32-bit memory bus and an IBM Personal Computer AT peripheral bus that accepts PC XT and AT add-in cards. The system's multiprocessing environment is suited for Microsoft Corp. and The Santa Cruz Operation's Xenix operating system, according to the company. It can also run multiple MS-DOS applications concurrently with conventional Xenix processes. There are five configurations of the Z-1000 system. Each system is equipped with a 20-MHz 80386 base processor to handle such functions as booting the system, running the operating system kernel and handling AT peripheral devices. Accommodations for five As many as five more 80386 application processors can be added to accommodate more users, handle more demanding applications and deliver faster system throughput. Each application processor card includes an Intel 80387 coprocessor socket and can drive up to 32 serial devices. In addition to the base processor, all five Z-1000 models are equipped with at least 4M bytes of memory, expandable to 64M bytes; a 150M-byte tape drive; a 5 -in., 1.2M-byte floppy disk drive; a 540W uninterruptible power supply; and a console terminal. The Z-1000 is modular, enabling users to expand the system with more memory and disk drives. Each has four full-size and two half-size small computer systems interface disk drive bays and can also accommodate an expansion chassis to add five more full-size disk drive bays. The systems cost between $19,900 and $59,300, depending on the configuration. For example, the Model 300 with the base processor, two additional 80386 application processors, 4M-byte memory and 300M-byte removable disk drive has a suggested retail price of $22,400. All five models will be ready for shipment in May, the company said. By Michael Alexander, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Future holds MS-DOS for U Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: softco Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: It may not be long before workstation users have the option of running any of the estimated 40,000 MS-DOS applications on their Unix machines without needing any help from Intel Corp. microprocessors. Under most current circumstances, engineering-style applications are run on workstations. However, with the lack of commercial Unix applications, many day-to-day operations such as word processing and spreadsheets must be performed on the personal computer. Hardware coprocessors _ which put Intel processors to work as sidekicks to the workstation's main CPU _ have been available for some time, but their $1,000-to-$1,500 price tag is daunting. This may change with the emergence of low-cost software emulators that provide a PC-DOS environment within a Unix session. Two companies _ Hunter Systems, Inc. and Phoenix Technologies Ltd. _ have come up with ways to emulate the Intel chip in software. Phoenix, located in Norwood, Mass., markets a product, VP/ix, that emulates a PC environment in a pop-up window. The Phoenix offering essentially traps the calls a software package makes that are specific to the Intel chip and translates them into the requests that can be understood by the workstation processor. The software will run more slowly, but with this product, virtually every DOS application can run on the Unix workstation. ``They just plug in a diskette, play it and run _ seamlessly,'' said Rich Levandov, Phoenix's vice-president of marketing. A binary-code translation product called XDOS is sold by Hunter Systems in Mountain View, Calif. Its technique involves recompiling the entire MS-DOS application. While the recompiled version of the application in Unix mode renders significantly faster performance, there are only a handful of DOS applications that run with XDOS. These include Lotus Development Corp.'s 1-2-3, Ashton-Tate Corp.'s Dbase III Plus and Multimate Advantage II, Wordperfect Corp.'s Wordperfect, Microsoft Corp.'s Word, Microrim, Inc.'s R:Base 5000 and IBM's Displaywrite. XDOS creates a Unix application programming interface, which essentially gives the programmer one common Unix interface to which to write the application _ as opposed to recompiling the DOS application to the differing flavors of Unix. Different pricing The pricing structure for the two software emulators is different. XDOS costs $50 per package, while the cost of the Phoenix emulation code is often bundled in with the system by the seller. Purchased separately, the Phoenix emulation software costs between $295 and $595. While XDOS is being sold with Motorola, Inc. processor-based systems, Levandov said that workstation vendors such as Digital Equipment Corp., Apple Computer, Inc., Apollo Computer, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Solbourne Computer, Inc. have licensed Phoenix's emulation software. Levandov noted that, in addition to the leading workstation vendors, 20 other firms that do not currently make workstations are licensing their IBM BIOS code and emulation software to get into the workstation business. He expects there to be 25 different brands of workstations with a DOS coprocessing option on the market in the next year. Hunter Systems Director of Marketing Patricia Yelvington said the firm is targeting the high-performance market, while the Phoenix approach is geared toward ease of use. ``In a multiuser environment, you have to have that performance,'' she said. ``The emulator approach is too slow.'' Yelvington conceded that few DOS applications will run with XDOS, while most DOS applications will run with Phoenix's disk. By William Brandel, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Look at ISDN CPE Author : Jeffrey N. Fritz Source : CW Comm FileName: fritzcol Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: The selection of customer-premise equipment (CPE) is an important but strangely overlooked part of Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) implementations. The user serves his company well by taking a careful look at what is currently available on the market. Few decisions are of more importance to the success of the ISDN network. But not all ISDN equipment offers the same features; capabilities vary from company to company and from device to device. CPE is the telephone company's jargon for equipment owned by the customer. In the analog world, it is the office telephone system, including any modems. In the ISDN world, it splits into three major devices: Desk sets. We used to call them telephones. Now they have a new handle, since they carry digitized voice and can have LCDs. They also have a fair amount of processing power built in for voice digitization and communication with the central office's digital switch. Many ISDN desk sets come complete with at least one RS-232 port on the back of the set. In this way, desk sets become the interface between ISDN and the office computer. It's kind of like having a very fast modem built right into the phone. Terminal adapters. They function somewhat like modems and even look a little like them, but since ISDN is all digital, the terminal adapter has nothing to MOdulate or DEModulate. Most terminal adapters offer one or more RS-232 ports so that several computers can be served from one terminal adapter and one ISDN Basic Rate Interface (BRI) line. Multiple data ports are of value in multitasking operating systems such as Microsoft's OS/2 or Apple's Multifinder. The personal computer can send a report to a remote printer over one ISDN channel while simultaneously transferring a file via the second channel. Coprocessor cards. In a sense, these are like internal PC modems. ISDN coprocessor cards can be very powerful and may have very sophisticated integrated software, so comparing them with internal modems is a bit of a misnomer. Coprocessor cards have the ability to support high-speed file transfers between PCs. Since they work off the personal computer's bus, the transfers can be done synchronously at 64K bit/sec. At such high bit/sec. rates, synchronous transfers tend to be more efficient than asynchronous ones. Thus, coprocessor cards usually have a throughput advantage over desk sets or terminal adapters that must rely on the asynchronous serial ports of the PC. An ISDN Basic Rate Interface comes to your office with three channels on one telephone line. There are two B (bearer) channels, B1 and B2. Both have the ability to carry synchronous or asynchronous data at 64K bit/sec. The data can be transmitted as circuit-switched (dialed much like a regular telephone call), packet-switched (as in local-area networks such as Ethernet) or ``nailed up'' (on-line with the central office all of the time). The third channel, the D channel, supports packet data at 9.6K bit/sec. ISDN's D channel is as fast as most of today's fastest modems. Its B channel runs faster than most common telecommunications data networks. Commonly, the B1 channel is used for voice communications, but in data-intensive environments, it may be advantageous to carry data on both B channels. But beware _ not all ISDN CPE offers full access to the ISDN network. Some will allow access to only one data channel at a time. This may be your choice of B or D but not both simultaneously. There are other limitations as well: Some ISDN devices limit transmission rates to 19.2K bit/sec. on the B channel or do not support synchronous data. In some computer environments, one data channel at 19.2K bit/sec. may be enough. If you are not hampered by this limitation and see no need for better capability in the future, then you may elect to go with more limited equipment. But keep in mind that it is not hard to outgrow such limited devices, and the cost differential for the extra sophistication is not great in many cases. The other item to consider in the selection of ISDN devices is B-channel rate adaption. ISDN's B channel always runs at 64K bit/sec., no matter what. When a user wants to use the B channel at a slower rate _ for instance, 19.2K bit/sec. _ ISDN equipment uses rate adaption to slow things down. The rub is that manufacturers use different methods for B channel rate adaption. Since both ends need to rate-adapt in exactly the same way, only compatible equipment can be used on both ends. This usually means sticking with one manufacturer's brand. The bright side The good news is that there is some movement to adopt a single standard. Currently, V.120 looks like a good candidate. However, until there is a single standard adopted by all ISDN equipment manufacturers, some care must be exercised to ensure B-channel compatibility. There is little doubt that ISDN will become the data telecommunications service of the future. While it will not take over the services offered by high-speed networks such as Ethernet and Token-Ring, it offers convenience and flexibility unheard of in other data services. It is the wise manager who considers today whether ISDN is right for his business computer system. By Jeffrey N. Fritz; Fritz is a data communications analyst at West Virginia University in Morgantown, W. Va. <<<>>> Title : No backupn avaiable if sh Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: tat Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: A recently installed fiber cable linking Europe and the U.S. East Coast may boast a solid one-two punch with its muscular data-carrying capacity and swift transmission speeds. But some industry sources are warning users of the world's first transoceanic digital connection not to fall too deeply in love with the new line _ at least for now. The reason? A backup fiber link for the TAT8 cable is not scheduled to be operational until late 1991. If TAT8 fails, users may have to switch back to satellite, which is said to be inadequate for some transmissions. ``There are some applications you just can't flip over to a satellite,'' said James F. Cofield, director of international marketing at The Aries Group-MPSG, a data and voice network design firm in Rockville, Md. When TAT8 became operational in mid-December, it provided the first trans-Atlantic alternative to satellite-based digital communications. TAT8's 560M bit/sec. transmission rate doubled the existing trans-Atlantic capacity and offered higher capacity than satellite links. Despite early problems _ sharks gnawing on a previous undersea fiber cable shorted it out several times, and one leg of TAT8 recently failed _ the line has been well-received. One key selling point for TAT8 is that fiber is free of the transmission delays that sometimes plague satellite networks. But therein lies the rub of the current backup problem, particularly for sites that use IBM's Systems Network Architecture (SNA). Under SNA, host trans- missions must be acknowledged by the recipient terminal controller within a specific time, or the host assumes the transmission did not get there and breaks the connection. With terrestrial cable connections such as TAT8, the receiving device gets the transmission and acknowledges it quickly enough to save the connection. But there is too much delay when each transmission _ the original sending and the acknowledgment _ involves a hop up to the satellite and then a return to earth. ``If you're using a broadband circuit on TAT8, and if there is a failure and you want to switch back to C- or Ku-band satellite transponders, the likelihood of doing that is slim because of the propagation issue,'' said Ken Phillips, chairman of the Committee of Corporate Telecommunications Users and vice-president of telecommunications policy at Citicorp. Even the system's largest investors are hedging their bets. ``We're not putting all our eggs in this basket just yet,'' said Richard Wallerstein, a spokesman at AT&T International, Inc., which owns 34% of TAT8's bandwidth. Bankamerica Corp. officials share AT&T's opinion. When the bank begins using TAT8 later this year, it will use the fiber cable initially only for voice communications while continuing to use satellites for its primary data transmission method. ``The TAT8 line is the backup for the satellite,'' Vice-President John Macri said at the recent American Bankers Association 1989 Bank Telecommunications Conference in New Orleans. ``If the satellite goes down, we throw away the voice on TAT8 and use that for data.'' Still, some users have supreme confidence in TAT8. ``Our contingency plans are pretty loose,'' said Shelly Candidus, a spokesman at Bull H. N. Information Systems, Inc. ``We have two circuits [running on TAT8], so if one fails, we go to another. If there were any repeat problems, I think we'd consider the satellite option.'' While Candidus noted that the engineering information Bull runs across TAT8 is ``extremely important, it is not critical to the functioning of the company. But we feel very confident that the line won't go down.'' Only weeks ago, however, one segment of the line did fail. TAT8 separates at an ocean-bed branching point 300 miles west of Europe, with one portion heading for the UK and another making a beeline for France's Brittany coast. On Feb. 6, the French leg of TAT8 went down and transmissions were routed through the UK. Nine days later, the entire 3,969-mile-long cable was powered down for repair and transmissions were sent via satellite. By Feb. 19, the cable was fully operational again. The episode resulted in a lot of finger-wagging from competitors. ``We restore a lot of cable traffic, and cable never restores satellite traffic,'' a Communications Satellite Corp. spokesman said. ``And there are no sharks in outer space.'' By James Daly, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Cincom uses host to route Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: cincom89 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: CINCINNATI _ Cincom Systems, Inc. is offering MIS a personal computer software distribution product that uses the mainframe as an electronic post office to send copies over the corporate network to desktop users. Late last month, Cincom announced Network Navigator, a distribution product that resides in part on an IBM mainframe and in part on the end user's IBM-compatible PC. The idea, product manager Mark Masson says, is to let MIS handle the upgrades for all the users covered by a site license. Navigator runs in three IBM operating environments: MVS/SP, MVS/XA and VM/ CMS. Applications can be sent to users across operating environments, Cincom said. Navigator complements Cincom's Netmaster series of communications products, said Ronald R. Hank, a Cincom spokesman. Netmaster, which takes on the role of IBM's own Netview network manager product, enables Navigator to distribute software over the network. ``If you want to ship an enhancement out to your user base, you usually have to physically copy the new version onto individual disks,'' Masson said. ``Now, MIS can electronically distribute the new software to users, as long as the corporation has the license to operate that software.'' As an example, Masson said, a new version of Lotus Development Corp.'s 1-2-3 spreadsheet could be distributed this way. However, he noted, no formal arrangements have been made with specific software vendors to endorse this method of distribution. Corporate users must pay a separate fee for each user's copy of the Navigator product, Cincom said. User fees will vary from $150 to $275, although volume discounts are available for large orders. The Navigator software for PCs will be delivered on 5 - and 3 -in. disks. A separate mainframe fee ranging between $20,000 and $40,000 will buy Navigator for the host IBM machine, with prices varying according to CPU configuration. Developed within over the last year, Navigator has four components: the Dispatcher, Autopilot, Copilot and Developer modules. ``Dispatcher is really the engine that underlies the product,'' Masson explained. ``It acts as a central switching station for data flowing from the mainframe.'' Dispatcher manages the data repository from which copies will be sent over the network. The Autopilot facility allows users to get automatic upgrades of the software they use, even if that software arrives overnight. ``Autopilot could start up 1-2-3 and run a Lotus macro to pull in data just delivered,'' Masson said. The Copilot module provides remote diagnostic capabilities. MIS programmers can use Co pilot to troubleshoot software problems at remote sites from their data center. The software allows programmers to see the user's screen as it appears during the diagnostic tests, Cincom said. Finally, the Developer module gives programmers a tool kit to create new applications based on software distribution. Navigator is available immediately, with installation taking from one week to 10 days, Masson said. ``PCs have come into the corporation in a variety of ways, and users have tended to go off and do their own thing,'' Masson said. ``The complexity of the corporate computing environment is so great now that end users need to rely increasingly on MIS to support them, and this tool enables MIS to do that effectively.'' By Jean S. Bozman, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Microsoft's LAN Manager p Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: lanman Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: BOSTON _ Bits of information are slowly creeping out concerning Microsoft Corp.'s 1989 plans for extending LAN Manager. 1988 was a heady year for Microsoft's OS/2 file server technology. It not only snagged a hefty number of big-name supporters _ including Digital Equipment Corp., AT&T, Hewlett-Packard Co. and 3Com Corp. _ but also managed to bask, whether deservedly or not, in the glow of its association with IBM and its LAN server. These accolades aside, Microsoft has targeted plenty of room for improvement, which will be addressed in LAN Manager 1.1, slated for a midyear release, according to Alan Kessler, marketing director of 3Com's Software Products Division. Last month, both during the Networld '89 Boston trade show and its annual software seminar, Microsoft Corp. laid out its vision of enterprisewide networking for the next three years and discussed possible extensions to LAN Manager. Today's corporate environment, according to Rob Glaser, director of marketing at Microsoft's Network Business Unit, still consists of personal computer islands using local-area networks and databases for limited file and print sharing, while the bulk of the mission-critical data remains on mainframe ``continents.'' Further separating users from this data are weak PC-to-mainframe links, he said. Glaser predicted that three years from now, mission-critical data will move to LAN servers, mainframe data will be accessed via gateway servers, and all this data will be manipulated with PC-based tools. Given that scenario, Microsoft aims to provide a standard connection from PCs to servers while also providing mainframe connectivity. Glaser outlined some potential connectivity-related enhancements to OS/2 and LAN Manager: More tightly coded drivers. Improved performance/scalability, including support for Intel Corp. 80386 coprocessors, specialized I/O subsystems, hundreds of workstations per server and fault tolerance. Distributed file directory services, providing location independence for users, making large networks easier to administer and supporting network facilities such as electronic mail. Mail services, including back-end store-and-forward capabilities within the LAN and CCITT X.400-compatibility for wide-area public service links. Security, including support for encrypted sessions and authentication and validation services as well as the ability to achieve B2 government-security rating. A 32-bit data path to and from disk storage devices for software running on 386 servers. Microsoft and 3Com are codeveloping network adapter drivers that reportedly will take up significantly less memory, a hot topic among LAN users in general these days. The LAN Manager drivers will be compressed from their current expanse of 80K to 100K bytes of random-access memory down to roughly 30K bytes of RAM and will ship in mid-April. Working on it Kessler said that 3Com has been working on the DOS memory problem and plans shortly to provide a retroactive upgrade at little or no cost. Microsoft is also working on its previously announced three-phased transport protocol strategy: Open Systems Interconnect Transport Class 4 (TP4), IBM-compatible Netbeui and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Transport protocols act as a bridge between applications software and network hardware. First announced a year ago, Excelan, Inc. is providing TCP/IP, which will be provided to OEMs via the LAN Manager developer kit, said an Excelan spokesman. This stack, running under DOS and OS/2, will provide standard TCP/IP to Netbios mapping. Microsoft's ISO OSI TP4 stack will be provided by 3Com from code supplied by Retix Corp. Kessler did not provide a shipping date. By Patricia Keefe, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Fiber-optic to light up L Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: fiberlan Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: NEWPORT, R.I. _ Fiber-optic local-area network sales are predicted to grow a whopping 47% per year on average, according to a recent report from Kessler Marketing Intelligence (KMI). Dominant vendors are set to provide Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) products, according to the research firm. At the same time, buying patterns in that market will shift drastically, away from Ethernet networks and toward Token-Ring and FDDI products, the company predicted. ``No question but that fiber-optic LANs are now the hottest part of the fiber industry,'' KMI President John Kessler said. KMI has never observed comparable growth in any other fiber segment, except when AT&T, U.S. Sprint Communications Co. and MCI Communications Corp. were racing to convert their long-haul networks to fiber, he added. The total fiber LAN market is predicted to grow from $25.4 million in 1987 to $319.1 million in 1993, the report said. Revenue in the fiber-based Ethernet sector, which totaled $18.8 million in 1987, will grow by almost 300% to $73.8 million in 1993, KMI said. While this is a sizable leap, Ethernet fiber LANs will steadily lose market share to high-speed fiber LANs, which are predicted to shoot up from $2.9 million in 1987 to $126.5 million in 1993, according to the report. Higher FDDI availability A major portion of the high-speed LAN market will be 100M bit/sec. FDDI products, which will become increasingly available as major vendors bring their offerings to market, KMI said. Right now, only two vendors offer FDDI products: Fibronics International, Inc. and In-Net Corp., according to KMI. Apollo Computer, Inc. recently announced an FDDI offering, and a number of vendors have promised such announcements in the near future, KMI said, including IBM, Digital Equipment Corp., Digital Communications Associates, Inc., 3Com Corp., Proteon, Inc., Fibercom, Inc., Raycom Systems, Inc. and Artel Communications Corp. Fiber-based Token-Ring products will also grow during the next five years, KMI said, from $2.1 million in 1987 to $118.6 million in 1993. Ethernet's comparatively low growth, compared with fiber-based Token-Ring offerings, reflects the fact that users initially bought Ethernet as an easily implementable system but increasingly demand Token-Ring's ability to ``add many more workstations than with Ethernet and also offer improvement in collision detection,'' Kessler said. Still to come While IBM has promised a future FDDI announcement, the company is still recommending shielded twisted-pair cable for its 16M bit/sec. Token-Ring network and relegating fiber to backbones that connect multiple LANs, Kessler said. Broken down by industry segment, the fiber LAN market in 1988 was made up of 29% corporate installations, 22% government, 16% financial, 15% education, 13% military and 5% other, including manufacturing and medical sectors, according to KMI. The research company expects strong growth in the manufacturing sector during the next few years, as factory networks demand the higher bit/ sec. rates and freedom from electromagnetic disturbance that fiber offers, Kessler said. Financial institutions, because of their security concerns, will also turn increasingly to fiber's comparative resistance to break-ins, he added. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : SNA tool speeds data tran Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: nsa Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. _ SNA software that supplants a micro-based gateway by supporting multiprotocol local-area network-to-host connectivity was unveiled recently by Network Software Associates, Inc. (NSA). The AdaptSNA 802.2 series is a family of IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA) communications software for IBM Personal Computers and compatibles and Personal System/2s attached to a Token-Ring. The software reportedly lets PCs talk directly to an IBM host via multiple SNA protocols, thereby eliminating the need for a gateway PC and decreasing data-transfer times. The latest addition to NSA's Adapt product family was designed to work with Token-Rings directly connected to mainframes or host controllers. For example, the software can be used on a Token-Ring linked directly to a 3174 cluster controller via IBM's Token-Ring Interface card. This facilitates data transfer at Token-Ring speeds of 4M- to 16M bit/sec. By comparison, NSA said the fastest PC gateway product is limited to speeds of 56K bit/sec. Moreover, NSA said its approach allows SNA to recognize each PC as a separate physical unit. This means that each PC can be directly addressed using SNA facilities such as IBM's Netview, which cannot address logical units. When using a gateway PC, only the gateway is recognized as an SNA physical unit, while other PCs are viewed as logical units, NSA said. NSA claimed its AdaptSNA is the first to allow PCs to communicate with the host via any of the following SNA protocols: interactive 3270, batch RJE (3770/RJE), LU6.2/Advanced Program-to-Program Communications (APPC) or LU0. IBM offers 3270 and LU6.2 APPC via direct connect; an NSA spokesman said the firm was the first to offer remote job entry and LU0 in addition to 3270 and LU6.2. The series consists of five modules priced from $245 to $785. An optional LAN Gateway, which allows PCs to be either physical units or logical units, starts at $995. By Patricia Keefe, CW staff <<<>>> Title : DEC details OSI-based net Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: decosi Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: LITTLETON, Mass. _ Digital Equipment Corp. laid out a few more pieces of its OSI-based multivendor networking strategy last week and attempted to clarify how the industry communications standard will fit in with Decnet, its existing proprietary system. DEC Director of Enterprise-wide Networking Lee Sudan reiterated the company's commitment to painless Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) migration for Decnet users but also indicated that the company has no immediate plans to discard Decnet's higher level functionality in favor of the industry standard. DEC's three formal networking announcements were the following: X25Portal 2000, communications server software that allows CCITT X.25 devices to communicate over a backbone of Decnet _ and later OSI _ routers [CW, March 6]. The package, which runs on any DEC VAX, Microvax or Vaxstation, is priced at $16,500 and is available now. Enhancements to DEC's existing FTAM software to ensure that it conforms to the Government OSI Profile (GOSIP). DEC Wide-Area Network Controller 220, a VAXBI version of DEC's existing DVS11 controller, which is said to provide two 64K bit/sec. synchronous connections between DEC systems and X.25, Decnet and IBM networks. Priced at $8,450, the 220 is available immediately. DEC spokesmen also attempted to clarify where the firm stands in terms of OSI migration. The company now offers a full range of OSI networking software, including FTAM and CCITT X.400 applications, that allows users of the existing Decnet Phase IV system to communicate with other OSI-compliant systems, Sudan said. Decnet Phase V, which is scheduled to be available around the middle of next year, will come out of the box with a full set of OSI protocols but will also incorporate the upper three layers of Decnet. These layers, unlike the lower ones, are still different from OSI, Sudan said. Decnet V's built-in OSI networking will provide a transparent solution to users' multivendor connectivity needs, he indicated. For the last 15 to 18 months, DEC has undergone OSI interoperability testing with a broad range of other vendors, primarily on OSInet, an OSI testing facility sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Sudan said. DEC recently ``retired'' its proprietary DDCMP protocol in favor of High-Level Data Link Control, thereby providing fully OSI-compliant wide-area networking, Sudan said. But he would not comment on when _ or even whether _ DEC intends to migrate the higher level functions of Decnet to OSI as it has with the lower four networking layers. The firm is weighing the possibility of superseding its proprietary file transfer protocol, DAP, with OSI's FTAM, he said. Still, Sudan insisted, having a dual set of upper-level protocols in Decnet Phase V is necessary because it allows users to communicate both with DEC's existing installation of more than 300,000 Decnet devices and with OSI devices. By Elisabeth Horwitt, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Apollo Computer, Inc. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netapoll Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Apollo Computer, Inc. has unveiled a network computing-based backup system designed to reduce the complexity of systems administration across distributed networks. Called Omniback, the product can perform file system backup operations across a heterogeneous computer network, the vendor said. It is reportedly built on Apollo's Network Computing System and is currently being offered on Apollo workstations. Omniback must be purchased in two components: the base product, which is priced at $5,000, and the machine licenses, which are priced at $150. Volume discounts are available, according to Apollo. Apollo 330 Billerica Road Chelmsford, Mass. 01824 508-256-6600 <<<>>> Title : GE Information Services, Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netgener Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: GE Information Services, a division of General Electric Co., has announced software enhancements to its EDI Express System. Reportedly used by more than 3,500 trading partners, the product electronically transmits invoices, purchase orders, freight bills and other documents in a variety of public and private formats and protocols. Version 7.0 of the system is said to include reports and selection criteria for Status Reports. It also provides News Feature Access for users. In addition, the company has announced Version 5.0 of the EDI PC System, its EDI software for microcomputers. The package reportedly enables trading partners to prepare and exchange business data electronically in standardized document formats and can be used as either a stand-alone workstation or as a front end to an in-house computer. The latest release includes a revised document processor with menu capabilities and pop-up windows. The initial program license fee for the system workstation software for the EDI Express System is $1,450 per copy. GE Information Services 401 N. Washington St. Rockville, Md. 20850 800-334-5669 <<<>>> Title : Encore Computer Corp. has Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netencor Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Encore Computer Corp. has announced its Multimax 500 family of symmetrical multiprocessing systems for commercial and technical applications. According to the vendor, the Unix-based machines provide as much as 170 million instructions per second (MIPS) of computing power and up to 67.2G bytes of storage capacity. The Multimax can be used as a high-performance file server for distributed computing environments and can be configured to support more than 1,000 users, the company said. The systems are expandable in 17-MIPS increments at a reported price/performance level of less than $3,500 per one MIPS. Pricing starts at $159,000. Encore 257 Cedar Hill St. Marlboro, Mass. 01752 508-460-0500 <<<>>> Title : A software utility that g Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netowend Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: A software utility that gives IBM Personal Computers and compatibles direct access to printers connected to Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS systems is available from Owen/Davis Systems. PC Print Version 3.0 now works with DEC's LAT terminal servers over Ethernet as well as through conventional distribution panels via a twisted-pair cable, the vendor said. The software reportedly reduces cabling requirements and is priced at $895 per VAX CPU. For a limited time, the company is offering the latest release at the previous $495 price. Owen/Davis Systems 1335 S. Acacia Fullerton, Calif. 92631 714-956-9159 <<<>>> Title : Attachmate Corp. has intr Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: netattac Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Attachmate Corp. has introduced a personal computer-based automation software program designed to access data residing on mainframe computers. Called Now PC/Host Autoware, the product uses IBM 3270 emulation software for data transfer between the personal computer and the host. Commands and steps are automated so the PC user does not have to learn the mainframe's procedures to retrieve information, according to the company. The product is available in two versions. The Author's Version reportedly includes all software and documentation necessary for creating autoware programs and is priced at $565. The User's Version, capable only of running autoware programs, has a price tag of $195. Attachmate 13231 S.E. 36th St. Bellevue, Wash. 98006 800-426-6283 <<<>>> Title : Executive track Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 313track Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Eugene M. Klawikowski has been promoted to the position of director, corporate information systems at Great Northern Nekoosa Corp. in Norwalk, Conn. Klawikowski had been manager, management information and systems at Great Northern Nekoosa's Nekoosa Papers, Inc. division in Port Edwards, Wis., since 1976. In his new position, he replaces Richard W. Fickey, who was named assistant vice-president of administration at Nekoosa Papers. Klawikowski, 45, joined Nekoosa Papers in 1967, where he held several positions of increasing responsibility until his 1976 promotion. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master's degree in business administration, both from the University of Wisconsin. William J. Hazelwood was named to replace Klawikowski with the new title of manager, management information and services at Nekoosa Papers. Hazelwood has been manager of computer information systems at Great Northern Nekoosa's Leaf River Forest Products division since 1982. He was previously with another Great Northern Nekoosa company, Great Northern Paper, as systems projects leader. Hazelwood holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Upper Iowa University. <<<>>> Title : Wordly leadership at Dow Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: dow Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Overseeing the information systems of a $13.4 billion, multinational chemical company forces one to think big _ globally, in fact. It takes a manager who can see the big picture from an international perspective combined with an eye for the most minute of details. For Hans Huppertz, corporate IS director at Dow Chemical Co., that means making IS a big part of the various business functions. Huppertz's ability to explain the details to the most computer-illiterate managers at Dow makes him the right man for the job, says his boss, Dow Chief Financial Officer Joe Downey. ``Hans can promote that enthusiasm for technology and IS and discuss it in terms that business can understand,'' Downey says. Huppertz, who was born in the Netherlands, says it is his mix of Dutch ethnicity, a business and technology education and time spent in California that has given him the style of a laid-back, hands-off manager that can understand the details while integrating business and IS functions. ``I think we Dutch are very meticulous in terms of what we do,'' Huppertz says. ``The Netherlands is a small country with a lot of people. If you're not very organized, it gets very chaotic. I bring this perspective to management.'' Late last year, Huppertz was moved from presiding over Dow's U.S. IS division to concentrate on corporate information systems, which oversees the U.S. and Dow's major international IS divisions. Having previously reported to the vice-president of engineering, Huppertz now reports directly to Downey. Huppertz is now entrusted with the company's most ambitious IS project ever _ global information systems. The strategy will not only put a majority of Dow's worldwide users on the same network but will also give Dow's customers around the globe access to product and sales information as well. The five-year project is now in its second year. In nine years as IS chief, Huppertz has succeeded in raising Dow's IS group into a prominent role in Dow's business picture. With 1,600 individuals employed to support more than 50,000 users, that picture is big. But under Huppertz's tenure, IS has one less link to travel to access the highest chain of command. Huppertz says he likes to think of himself as the glue between those working in the business functions and those managing them. Along with Downey and the IS staff, Huppertz formed a representative unit that places an IS professional in each of Dow's business entities. Making up a group called the Business Systems Manager Council, IS staffers are now active in the separate chemicals or plastics development business decisions and functions. ``I look at them as my account managers out there,'' Huppertz says. ``They look at what these businesses are doing and make sure that the right tools are in place, and then the IS function as a whole supports these people. They can say, `These are some of the important applications we have to work on in the next couple of years.' '' Huppertz has also established a computer resources board, which essentially prompts high-level managers of the different functions and businesses within Dow to become directly involved with IS decision making. ``This was a pretty shrewd move on Hans' part,'' Downey says. The connection of IS to any business decision ``is now a given. And with a multinational like Dow, you have to have a reliable IS to make the company work.'' Studied economics A recipient of a bachelor's degree in economics, Huppertz began his professional career in business for Netherlands-based companies and then moved to California in 1960 to live with an uncle. After enrolling at the University of California at Berkeley in 1962, Huppertz was turned on to data processing by a friend who had taken a class, which Huppertz then attended. Huppertz moved back to the Netherlands in 1968 and accepted a job at Dow's Netherlands facility, working his way into the IS management hierarchy. He was called to work in Dow's Midland, Mich., headquarters as top IS executive in 1980. While Huppertz prefers to hire MBAs and then teach them technology, he says he tends to hire creative people who will bring fresh ideas into his division. ``They have to interpret the business needs and the competitive advantage achieved by a computing system,'' Huppertz says. ``We look for the creative innovators. Sometimes they're a little harder to manage, but they bring so much to the party in terms of ideas. We give them a certain amount of freedom, they understand what we expect of them, and they have a minimum of supervision.'' As a result of his recruiting, Huppertz has a staff that tends to get ahead of him in regard to technology projects _ and he encourages it. For example, Huppertz decided that Dow should look into expert systems, only to find that some people both inside and outside of his staff were already experimenting with them. ``Because of their backgrounds, our users usually have the exposure to technologies like AI before we do,'' Huppertz says. ``So we asked, `Hey, what are you doing? Let's share resources and capital.' We brought them together and got the synergism going. That's really the role we play, to bring it together and then help.'' By William Brandel, CW staff <<<>>> Title : CIOs still have to run th Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: cio Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Information executives are the rookies on the executive team at most companies and have to prove their worth before they will be completely accepted. So said William Atkins, national director of advanced technology practice at Touche Ross & Co., at the recent Financial Executives Institute conference in New York. Atkins said that information systems executives were considered minor-leaguers before the mid-1980s. As systems grew into strategic weapons, so grew respect for IS executives, he said. The IS executive still has a long way to go, though. Traditional corporate functions such as accounting and marketing have long histories and an educational heritage, while IS has a very short history, Atkins said. Often, IS originated under the wing of another department before being turned out on its own. Until as recently as five years ago, there was very little educational training available for IS jobs. Some IS advice from Atkins: Stop ``speaking in tongues'' with technical acronyms. Instead, IS officials should speak in basic business terms that other executives can understand. Also, be honest about what can and cannot be done using systems. ``Don't say you'll deliver a Cadillac and then deliver a Chevy,'' Atkins advised. Also important, Atkins said, is that IS understand the company's products, markets, customers and competitors to be certain systems they design will help the business strategically. Further, before automatically alienating themselves from other executives, the information executive and the company's chief executive officer should work together to come up with an appropriate title. ``Don't be a CIO if everyone else is a senior vice-president of something,'' Atkins said. By Alan J. Ryan, CW staff <<<>>> Title : `Should I stay or should Author : Glenn Rifkin Source : CW Comm FileName: forside Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: For many foreign students, the ``stay in America or go home after graduation'' question is often answered by forces beyond their control. Many foreign students are subsidized by their government and have agreed to return upon graduation. Also, immigration issues create a barrier that many U.S. companies are unwilling to hurdle. Communications issues can also create an obstacle to permanent residence. For this reason, more Indian students, for example, choose to stay, while more Korean students tend to return to their homeland. ``Indian students tend to have excellent English skills and have little trouble settling in this culture,'' says Sudha Ram, a native of India who received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and is now an assistant professor of MIS at the University of Arizona. ``We find the U.S. is more open to other cultures.'' Conversely, Pradeep Kumar, a master's student in MIS at Boston University, sees vast opportunity in MIS back home. ``My main goal is to get into a multinational corporation for a couple of years and then go back home to Malaysia or to Singapore or the Philippines,'' he says. ``At home, MIS is relatively new, and I can start in a new business and have a lot of impact.'' According to Gordon Davis, Honeywell professor of MIS at the University of Minnesota, the rate of return to native lands varies by global region, especially on the doctoral level. Davis helped found Minnesota's MIS Research Center 20 years ago and has tracked the trends of doctoral students through the years. He says, for example, that most Indian Ph.D. candidates stay in the U.S., while 60% of Koreans and Taiwanese return home. The return rates among other nationalities, according to Davis, are as follows: Singapore. Since most have received government subsidies to study in the U.S., 90% return. Mainland China. Though there is a recent surge in Chinese applicants, it is too soon to have numbers on rate of return for this potentially huge group of students. South America. There are few doctoral students in MIS, but of those, 60% return to their countries. Europe. Most will return home. Japan. The country is not a big player in information systems education; most Japanese students prefer computer science. Australia. Eighty percent return home. Northern Africa (Egypt, Tunisia). Most will return home. Davis points out that the immigration issue is a growing obstacle for foreign students, but if they focus on a discipline in which a demand can be demonstrated in the U.S., immigration status is easier to obtain. ``Faculty in MIS are in demand, so many of the bright foreign students choose that field,'' Davis says. ``That way, they can stay. But it is getting harder.'' At the master's level, the stay-or-return ratio is tougher to track, Davis says, but he adds that far fewer at that level stay in the U.S. ``There's more opportunities for MBA students to hook up with multinational corporations, stay here for a while and then get sent back home,'' he says. GLENN RIFKIN <<<>>> Title : The new EDP auditors Author : Les Gilliam Source : CW Comm FileName: gilfeb Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: In the early days of computing, EDP auditors were few and not well-equipped for the task. Most were accountants with little or no experience in data processing. But times are changing with regard to external auditors and their ability to carry out the responsibilities of the EDP auditor. Most large companies and many medium-size companies have established permanent internal EDP auditor positions and staffed them with knowledgeable professionals who come with valuable suggestions for improving the IS function. One area that is always high on the auditor's list is the existence and enforcement of rules by which the IS organization carries out its responsibilities. It is surprising, even after all these years, that some lS departments continue to operate by the seat of their pants without the use of a set of standards. What to look for The auditors will do well if they look for the following as important elements in the IS standards. First, does the IS organization have a long-range plan that coincides with and supports the long-range plans of the company? Has there been an attempt to develop a business plan and identify strategic computer applications? Next, does the IS organization routinely develop annual work plans? These should reflect the continuing implementation of the long-range plans, be fully supported by user departments and be approved by senior management. Auditors should be interested in how budgets are prepared and controlled. To what level of detail is the budget broken down, and do IS managers receive accurate and timely reports that allow them to exercise proper control over expenditures? One area in which auditors are criticizing IS organizations these days is the lack of a well-defined methodology for application systems development. A good methodology will describe the principal tasks to be performed by all levels of the lS organization, including management, supervisors and project participants, to plan, manage and control systems development efforts. If IS management is to plan and control expenditures and personnel activity properly, a resource accounting system is a necessity. The system should, of course, account for the use of the computer system by user department and application. Time should also be logged so that management can monitor project time and costs as well as find opportunities to improve staff productivity. If the user departments are to be accountable for applications developed and processed on their behalf, then there must be a chargeback system in place. Most companies say their greatest asset is their people. In most cases, however, people are also the most costly asset. Auditors should have an interest in how well this asset is being managed in the IS department. A standard employee appraisal and counseling system can be used to gauge employee performance as well as to identify the outstanding employees, weed out the unacceptable performers and structure personnel development plans tailored to individuals. If senior management is reluctant to approve the time and costs to develop a good set of standards, a well-prepared auditor's report will often provide the necessary impetus to obtain approval. Gilliam is president of Gilliam Associates, a computer management consulting firm based in Ponca City, Okla. By Les Gilliam; Gillaim is president of Gilliam Associates, a computer management consulting firm based in Ponca City, Okla. <<<>>> Title : Turning out the lights in Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: afcom Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: SAN DIEGO _ Like backwards moths, operations managers at the recent annual conference of the Association for Computer Operations Management were drawn toward ``lights-out'' advice. ``Lights out,'' or unattended operations, is something that has drawn the keen interest of many managers in the late 1980s, but few have made the incremental changes necessary for their shops to run truly unattended. When they have, it is only for a few hours at a time. In shops that support some unattended operations, Arnold Farber, president of Farber/LaChance, Inc., a consulting firm in Richmond, Va., said that most now operate without human help for two to five hours. The longest period of lights out that he cited was eight hours, which was achieved at an auto company and a Colorado service bureau, both unnamed. Farber said the service bureau is working toward a 12-hour dark shift. Starting with a small time segment makes it easier to notice and address problems without them getting out of hand, Farber said. It is not necessary to buy snazzy new hardware or software to move toward unattended operations, according to Farber. He said much can be done with currently underutilized equipment. Farber suggested automating functions such as balancing work loads, environmental monitoring and the Help desk. Environmental monitoring, for instance, would run software from a company like Johnson Controls, Inc. to make sure the proper cooling is maintained in the computer room, rendering on-site building maintenance unnecessary. Other hot issues in operations management at the conference were those that deal with human management and those that deal with nonhuman, or robotic, management. Managers are facing people problems in several areas. The longest-running issue is job displacement through automation. Cross-training is one way to address both that issue and the newer problem of the lack of turf security. For instance, in downsizing operations or bringing in application-specific equipment, you need to quell the dedication to MVS and cross-train to other environments, said Richard Sitts, an automation specialist who is implementing 3M Co.'s five-year automation plan. In the nonhuman area, robotics in tape storage garnered some interest. Tape library robotics, about 1 year old, allows much faster finding and mounting of cartridges. It has been apparently well received as a way to manage otherwise unwieldy amounts of data. As a way of protecting their operations and formulating realistic goals, operations managers are increasingly turning to service-level agreements _ a contract that lets both provider and user of services know what to expect, when and how much. ``They help to respond to an ever-changing environment,'' said Fred Luevano Jr., manager of computer operations at Northrop Corp.'s Aircraft Services Division. ``It helps you know where the bottlenecks are.'' However, service-level contracts may not be as widespread as they could be because while they pinpoint the level of responsibility, they likely expose the person with that responsibility. By J.A. Savage amd Joanne Kelleher, CW staff <<<>>> Title : Survivors know the value Author : Suzanne Weixel Source : CW Comm FileName: disas Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Until it happens to you, says Charyl Sarber, you cannot really know what disaster means. ``You can plan and you can practice, but until you have experienced a disaster firsthand, you cannot understand.'' One of the least understood characteristics of disaster, Sarber says, is that it seldom takes the shape you would have expected. Certainly no one at First Interstate Bank of California, where Sarber is vice-president and manager of business resumption planning, could have foreseen the fire that gutted five floors of First Interstate's 62-story headquarters in downtown Los Angeles on the night of May 4, 1988. By the time the flames were extinguished, the company's securities-trading room, which normally handles from $3 billion to $5 billion per day, was totally destroyed. Mini and microcomputer equipment housed in the bank's bond-trading division had all but melted in temperatures reaching up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and approximately 2,000 employees had to be relocated. In fact, the bank was able to salvage its operations from the ashes of the fire, giving customers a semblance of business as usual the next morning and restoring functions to all key bank units within 24 hours. But the reasons for rapid recovery had nothing to do with anticipating the specific form that the disaster would take. Instead, First Interstate was rescued because, unlike many companies, it had decided long before anything ever happened that disaster preparedness was a critical and continuing need. First Interstate started developing its business resumption plan in 1986. Development took place in weekly and biweekly meetings between 47 critical operating units, 31 supporting critical applications and an in-house professional planning staff. ``Because we had set up a very good infrastructure, the plan held together [during the fire], but we learned that although you can plan for recovery, you cannot plan for a specific disaster,'' Sarber says. ``Flexibility is very important.'' Sarber calls the bank's disaster recovery plan a ``living document.'' Never completely finished and placed on a shelf, it has always been reviewed and tested at regularly scheduled intervals. Many crisis scenarios are detailed as part of the plan, as are the appropriate responses to each situation. Subtle changes As a result of the fire, subtle changes have been made in some of the plan's specific details, and some switches occurred in the recovery order. For instance, First Interstate decided to reexamine what it calls its tiers of criticality: The first tier identifies what needs to be recovered in 24 hours, and the second tier points out what needs to be recovered in 72 hours. The fire also showed First Interstate how important it is to keep its plan current and well maintained. Prior to the fire, First Interstate was in the process of loading plan data into Chi/Cor Information Management, Inc.'s Total Recovery Planning System disaster recovery software. ``Since the fire, we are more convinced than ever that an on-line relational database is necessary in keeping the plan up-to-date,'' Sarber says. Sarber adds that a person's ability to cope under extreme circumstances makes or breaks the recovery operation. ``If we ever had to go through it again, I think the most important thing we gained was confidence,'' she says. ``We now understand crises management in a way we couldn't before.'' Arthur Cybul, data processing operations manager at A. M. Castle & Co., a metals distributor based in Franklin Park, Ill., agrees with this attitude. ``The first time through you think, `Oh my God, can we do this?' The second time you think, `We can do anything!' '' Cybul should know. In August 1987, torrential rains left 20 inches of water throughout Castle's corporate facility, forcing the organization to evacuate the building. In May 1988, the infamous fire at Illinois Bell's Hinsdale switching office caused the company to declare an emergency for the second time in nine months. ``The effects of the fire on business were potentially far more serious than the effects of the flood,'' Cybul asserts. ``But because we had been through the flood and had made certain changes, we had confidence in our plan.'' Before the fire and flood hit, Castle had run regular tests of its three-year disaster recovery plan to make sure it would work. Sanford Sherizen, an information security and contingency planning consultant and president of Data Security Systems, Inc. in Natick, Mass., says a full-blown disaster simulation is the best way to truly discover if a plan will pull the company through a disaster. But even with the tests, Cybul says he had some surprises when the real thing hit. ``When you are testing, you have all sorts of luxuries, including the luxury of time and the luxury of choosing who stays on-site and who goes off-site,'' he adds. ``There's no top executive looking over your shoulder asking when the system will be up. The actual disaster is a whole different ball game. The pressure is tremendous.'' Cybul discovered many details that never came into play during testing. For instance, how will employees staffing off-site facilities be compensated? Castle, a long-time subscriber to Comdisco Data Recovery Services, Inc., learned that all the money spent on disaster recovery over the years paid off in more ways than just having a hot site to go to. Comdisco also took care of logistics, including travel plans for the recovery team and transportation for backup tapes. In addition, Cybul found out that nothing can be taken for granted. During the test scenarios, he had always assumed that if relocation was necessary, the Franklin Park headquarters would have been destroyed. Because no one expected to have a fully intact facility standing in 20 inches of water, no communications provisions had ever been made to link Castle's corporate office to the hot site. Castle has 27 offices located nationwide, but because the Franklin Park site was underwater, none of them had on-line capability. After the flood, company officials addressed this gap by adding more equipment, including dial backup lines. In May, when the Hinsdale fire wiped out one-third of the company's data network, the dial backup lines were put to good use. Unfortunately, as Cybul learned in spite of the company's faithful test runs, it often takes an actual disaster to point out the faults of a recovery plan. Before the Hinsdale fire, Motorola, Inc. thought it understood its telecommunications routing. ``Now we know better,'' sighs Toni Waeghe, market manager of industry marketing at Codex Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola. When the switching office burned, Motorola was left without 35 domestic data circuits, four international data circuits, incoming 800 service, international toll-calling ability and incoming-call service. Despite the use of multiple vendors, all of the lines in Motorola's network went through the Hinsdale hub. ``We thought we had everything covered,'' Waeghe says. ``For instance, we had dial backup facilities in place, using phone lines and modems. Lo and behold, those lines went through Hinsdale, too.'' Motorola is currently completing a replacement for the private voice network for all its facilities. Network planners are scrutinizing every routing scheme, examining routing maps and working closely with vendors to be sure there are no more surprises. ``We learned our lesson,'' Waeghe concludes. Valuable lessons The flooding disaster also taught Castle lessons about how important people are to the recovery process. After the disaster, the company realized its recovery plan's basic organizational structure needed reworking. ``It had been that you started with Step 1 and when you got to Step 100, you were finished,'' Cybul explains. ``We learned that in order to make the system more readily available to the end user, efforts would have to be done simultaneously. This means that the people involved really have to understand what needs to be done.'' Castle now likens the enactment of its disaster plan to the enactment of a play: There is a cast of characters and each character has a role. Who plays what role is less important than having the role performed. Jon William Toigo, author of the book Disaster Recovery Planning: Managing Risk & Catastrophe in Information Systems, says that misuse of personnel is a fundamental problem with many disaster recovery plans. Too often, he says, the objective of the plan is to arrive at a set of procedures and write them down in a book. A vital part of the planning stage is teaching people how to act in the event of an actual disaster. ``Shakespeare said it best,'' Toigo says. `` `All things are ready if our minds be so.' '' First Interstate is a prime example of a company that takes such advice to heart. It claims that the relative ease with which it met the challenge of an actual disaster was due in large part to the involvement of critical units in making their own business resumption plans. ``It was really the people who built the plan who made the plan work,'' Sarber says. ``They knew what to do and they did it.'' Another common weakness in recovery plans, according to Toigo, is that current methodologies still focus on mainframes, ignoring such industry developments as decentralization and telecommunications. Sherizen says most companies have a tendency to plan for simplified internal disasters, overlooking what he calls ``the spreading environment of risk.'' In the case of the Hinsdale fire, companies had just assumed that whatever disaster struck, phones would be available. But if the telephone company burns, it takes your telephone service with it. And without telephone lines, a company cannot conduct business. But, according to Steve W. Petty, director of the consulting services group at Computer Business Associates, Inc. in Tampa, Fla., the planning often stops there. Companies ``fill three to five volumes with information and then put them on a shelf,'' he says. ``It's out of date as soon as it's finished.'' Even when there is an updated recovery plan in place, preconceptions about what constitutes a disaster can cause costly delays when it comes to accepting the fact that the company is in an emergency situation. When an untraceable short circuit in its Data General Corp. MV 8000 mainframe left the Oregon Telco Credit Union without on-line processing for five days last year, forcing personnel to manually record all activity, the word ``disaster'' took on new meaning. Bob Kuhnert, the company's controller, says, ``We always thought it meant a fire.'' According to Kuhnert, Oregon Telco waited too long before contacting Data Assurance Corp., its Denver-based hot-site service. ``We never experienced an outage longer than one day,'' Kuhnert explains. ``Data General service personnel found the short the first day, so they thought they'd be able to locate its origin.'' As a general rule of thumb, Kuhnert says, Oregon Telco will now contact its hot site after one business day. A. M. Castle also learned that the early bird catches the worm. During the flood, it waited an extra day to see if the water level would subside. As a result of this delay, Comdisco had already filled its local hot-site facilities with other companies affected by the same disaster. Instead of the hot site it had originally planned on, the Castle recovery team found itself far from home in a strange facility in New Jersey. ``One of the biggest things we learned from the flood was not to waste time declaring an emergency.'' Cybul says. ``In 1987, we put the business at risk by waiting. In 1988, we didn't hesitate.'' If hesitation in the implementation of a plan constitutes a risk, having no plan at all constitutes reckless endangerment. Right now, Sherizen says, too many companies are relaxing in the mistaken belief that a disaster will not happen to them. ``It's not until the burglar hits the neighborhood that sales of alarms go up,'' he says. Companies that postpone planning are betting against the odds, Toigo affirms. In his book, he says the chance of experiencing a disaster that affects a company's corporate data processing center are one in 100. Toigo's book goes on to predict that the average company will lose 2% to 3% of its gross sales within eight days of a sustained computer outage. If the disruption lasts longer than 10 days, the average organization will never fully recover; 50% will be out of business within five years. But even with those odds, it often takes a brush with disaster before companies start thinking ahead. ``Nobody wants to think about a disaster, so [planning] gets put on the back burner,'' Petty says. ``The irony is, if it's not dealt with from the start as an issue of MIS strategic planning, it's not going to get put in place until it's too late.'' Those are words that Chris Seymour, an information services consultant for the treasury headquarters of AT&T in Murray Hill, N.J., can identify with all too well. The company did not place too much stock in disaster planning until an incident in December 1988 nearly destroyed some vital data. The data center was in the process of implementing a local-area network, and some of the equipment _ including a tape backup system _ was not yet in place. Programmers were supposed to make daily backups of the applications being developed on floppy disks, but most of them did not. ``We were very busy trying to get the application systems out the door,'' Seymour explains. ``Using floppies was time-consuming.'' Murphy's law But, as Murphy's law would dictate, the hard disk drive on the LAN's file server broke down, taking a lot of vital data with it. Seymour, who was desperate to get the data restored, was willing to try almost anything. ``We actually took apart the computer to find out who manufactured the hard disk,'' Seymour says. The disk's original manufacturer directed the company to Ontrack Data Recovery, Inc., a subsidiary of Ontrack Computer Systems, Inc. Luckily for the utility, Ontrack was able to recover all of the data from the corrupted disk drive. After this small catastrophe, Seymour took no chances. He made certain that each day's work was copied in two places _ a hard disk on a personal computer attached to the LAN, in addition to the hard disk on the file server _ until the tape backup system arrived. Once that system was up and working, the organization started making daily backups, which are sent to off-site storage on a weekly basis. Short of experiencing a disaster, organizations intent on building a successful disaster prevention and recovery plan would do well to study the experiences of others. ``Until you have experienced a loss, it is extremely difficult to perceive the tremendous amount of coordination and the actual damage recovery that must take place,'' says Pat Williams Moore, the national educational coordinator for BMS Catastrophe, Inc. Moore says education is the best way to convince people that recovery prevention and planning are worth the effort. She spends most of her time traveling across the country lecturing to associations and other groups concerned with disaster planning, trying to get the message out. ``Unless companies have been made aware by experiencing a previous loss or through education, they tend to overlook [restoration of on-site facilities] in initial planning,'' she says. Survivors try to learn from both their own experiences and those of others. First Interstate has pledged to continue testing, rehearsing and refining its plan, and Castle's Cybul does more reading about other people's experiences than ever before: ``We are constantly learning. We know we can never be too prepared.'' By Suzanne Weixel; Weixel is a free-lance writer based in Framingham, Mass. <<<>>> Title : Ask the vendor Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: atv1 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Does the Expert Auditor Disaster Recovery package have a function that will assist in auditing a data center's disaster recovery plan? Bruce Morrison EDP Audit Manager Kemper Financial Services, Inc. Chicago MIS TRAINING INSTITUTE: The Expert Auditor series was designed to enable personnel without extensive technical training to conduct audits in highly technical areas. Expert Auditor leads the user though the audit step by step. With its extensive contextual tutorials, the auditor learns the package as he audits. The system then analyzes the input and generates a complete audit report. <<<>>> Title : Surveying the aftermath Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: finances Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Computer dependence, which is now a fact of life in most businesses, means vulnerability to functional and financial losses due to computer outages. The extent of that vulnerability was the subject of a recently completed nationwide study conducted by The Center for Research on Information Systems at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). The occurrence of a computer outage has four undesirable effects, the study found. First, there is a reduction, or possibly a complete loss, of the ability to perform basic business functions. A second impact is loss of revenue. Third, the cost of conducting business increases. The fourth effect involves intangibles that generally are not easily priced but still have an adverse effect on the business. Fifty-five percent of the study's respondents said that manual methods would be one of their recovery methods. However, only a naive recovery planner would believe that all of a company's computer-supported functions can be performed manually. Not only is much of the data locked in the dead computer's system, but, in many cases, the skills needed to return to manual methods have long been lost. For example, the U.S. Navy learned during the late 1970s that radar operators in their computer-based Combat Information Centers had great difficulty returning to manual grease-pencil-and-ruler methods of target tracking when a computer outage occurred. Their manual target tracking skills had atrophied. You can imagine that a typical bank would have even more trouble trying to manually balance deposits and withdrawals. As the length of the outage increases, both the loss of functionality and integration of functions worsen. Most businesses are able to function with only slightly reduced loss of efficiency for the first week. After that, however, approximately 50% of businesses predict total or critical loss of function. Resorting to manual methods results in increased backlogs because only portions of the normal order volume, inventory tracking and shipment activities can be completed in this way. Even worse, however, are the effects of loss of integration in terms of information sharing. When coordination of information among departments is lost, errors can result, including promising to deliver goods that are not in inventory and losing sales because of erroneous out-of-stock reports. Computer outages can also have a big impact on an organization's revenue. The order entry and sales functions have been so fully computerized that many organizations simply cannot process sales transactions without computer support. In the UTA survey, 51% of the respondents indicated that their sales and marketing function was totally or heavily dependent on computer support. Another 29% reported moderate dependency. What is more, even if sales could be transacted manually, billing would be difficult at best. Eighty-nine percent of the survey respondents indicated their accounting function was totally or heavily dependent on computer support. A less obvious, but nonetheless important, financial impact derives from the fact that computer outage initiates actions that cause the business to incur additional expenses. The activation of a disaster recovery plan typically requires the use of alternative computer facilities _ at some cost. Even if that is not the case and an organization depends solely on manual methods during the outage, there are other expenses. For example, manually producing paychecks requires typewriters, desks and typists _ resources not usually available on a standby basis and even harder to find during a crisis situation. These reources must be obtained and their cost added to the price of doing business. Disaster recovery consultants indicate most organizations underestimate their potential additional costs by as much as double what they anticipated. Intangible costs constitute all losses in which there is no calculable amount associated with the loss. These include cash-flow interruption, customer loss, reduced competitive edge, legal and regulatory violations and erosion of industry image. The largest intangible loss unveiled in the UTA survey was cash-flow interruption, which was cited by 85% of the respondents. Perhaps because there is no dollar amount associated with these losses, they are often not considered. However, they are the ones that continue to affect the business even after computer support has been restored. The continued loss of customers, competitive edge and image may turn out to be more fatal than the temporary loss of revenue and additional costs. The functional and financial impacts of computer outage can be severe and debilitating. Survival requires that organizations prepare for such an event. Whenever a computer support system is proposed for a critical business function, the impact of a computer outage on that function should also be considered and appropriate provisions integrated into the system requirements. Periodic updates of the disaster recovery plan are required as the organization and its functions change. Last, but not least, if organizations are going to base their ability to weather an outage on reversion to manual methods, staff training in those methods is a must. By Steven R. Christensen and Lawrence L. Schkade; Christensen is a software design specialist at General Dynamics. Schkade is a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. <<<>>> Title : Most accidents happen whe Author : Suzanne Weixel Source : CW Comm FileName: disassd Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: It isn't enough to plan for the worst: In order to be really safe, companies must also think about procedures to ward off preventable losses. In the rush to cover every recovery contingency, many firms forget some basic precautions. Preventative measures run the gamut from installing uninterruptible power supplies and water detection devices to testing for environmental contamination such as smoke, dust and residue from laser printers. Security systems for hardware and software also fall under the prevention heading. But the prevention category that is both the most important and most ignored has to be data backup. According to Jon William Toigo, author of Disaster Recovery Planning: Managing Risk & Catastrophe in Information Systems, 90% of disaster recovery involves restoring backup data. That high amount can be partially blamed on mainframe bias. Toigo says most plans ignore the fact that most users sit at workstations or personal computers, far from the company's mainframe. Linda Uhl, a PC analyst at Continental Bank in Chicago, suggests another reason why PCs are often left out of central plans. Decentralization has produced a situation in which ``each area sets its own rules for backing up,'' she says. ``Obviously, some do better than others.'' Companies that fail to enforce strong data backup procedures are looking for trouble, claims Ron Lachman, president of Lachman Associates, Inc., a systems development and consulting firm. Only a few people develop good data maintenance habits from the start, he says. The rest barely read the user's manual. But if backup procedures are followed initially, a lot of headaches can be avoided. Uh-oh! Just ask Lori Dietrich, supervisor of planning and business analysis at Dorsey and Whitney, a law firm in Minneapolis. When the hard disk drive on her rented Compaq Computer Corp. personal computer crashed, she ``thought it was the end of the world.'' Eventually, 99% of Dietrich's data was retrieved by Ontrack Data Recovery, Inc., a firm that specializes in rebuilding data off of damaged hard disks, but not before she had spent a frantic week trying to resurrect it herself. ``If the firm hadn't paid for the recovery service, I would have used money out of my own pocket,'' she says. If the data was that important, why wasn't it backed up? Dietrich says she usually works on a Wang Laboratories, Inc. PC tied into the company's Wang VS 300 and backs up onto tape. In this case, however, her spreadsheets were too large for the Wang system to handle, so she rented a Compaq 38320 portable. Unfamiliar with the system, she was backing up the data directly onto the same hard disk. ``Now, I always back up onto floppies, no matter how large the spreadsheet is,'' she says. Jeffrey Dorfman, assistant vice-president of operations at Merrill Lynch Equity Management, realized the fruits of good backup behavior last October, when the vice-president of finance's Telex 1280 suffered a hard-disk failure. The disk had the company's entire budget on it, including a five-year projection. Merrill Lynch's general backup policies call for immediate backup onto 60M-byte streaming tape using Sytron Corp.'s Sy-Tos software. The most recent backup in this case had been done the night before. Within three hours, the drive was replaced and the data restored, but a full day's work had to be redone. The situation could have been much worse, he says. Until three years ago, when the firm suffered a major data loss, backups were done only once a month. In addition to backing up data daily, Dorfman advocates total documentation to ensure a smooth restoration. Knowing exactly what data is located in each subdirectory and each file on a disk can save a company time and money. <<<>>> Title : Guard the line of retreat Author : Sharon Baker Source : CW Comm FileName: upsdisas Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: You can never be too prepared. That's the lesson First Interstate Bank of California in Los Angeles learned 1 years ago when an earthquake that rocked Southern California nearly caused one of its downtown branches to lose power. Although the branch had a diesel-driven Emerson Electric Co. uninterruptible power supply (UPS), the earthquake fractured one of the fuel lines connecting the diesel tanks to the generators. Luckily, the branch had taken the precaution of installing a backup fuel line and was able to avoid a system shutdown. But the thought that the backup line could also have been easily fractured was enough to scare bank officials into installing a third fuel line with different routing between the tanks and the generators, providing the bank with triple redundancy. ``You can't ever allow a single point of failure in your data processing environment,'' says Cole Emerson, vice-president and manager of information management at First Interstate. ``If we hadn't had that backup fuel line, we would have gone down.'' Companies install UPSs, complete with batteries and generators, as insurance against power failures. But what happens when a natural disaster threatens to dismantle that backup? What can be done to protect the protection? Sanford Sherizen, president of Data Security Systems, Inc. in Natick, Mass., says he doubts that enough companies are asking themselves that kind of question. ``You can be tripped up by the least-thought-out aspect of your specific [contingency] planning,'' he explains. First Interstate, which has been brushed by disaster on at least two occasions, is more aware than most organizations of the need for multiple layers of protection. Last May, a major fire ripped through a branch seven blocks from the one hit by the 1987 earthquake. At this point, Emerson says he is prepared for almost anything, and he means that literally. For example, a few years ago, Emerson identified the critical components within the banks' UPSs that were most likely to be damaged by a fire, electrical shortage or some other calamity. In addition to a list, that exercise yielded an alarming discovery: It would take almost six weeks to replace some of those parts. The bank decided that it could not tolerate that kind of vulnerability and set up a backup stock of the most critical parts. Although he has never had to use this stockpile, Emerson says its existence provides a tremendous relief. Such foresight would have been helpful to Carolina Chavez, manager of data processing at Banco Capitalizador in San Salvador, El Salvador, when that city was rocked by an earthquake in October 1986. Although the bank's Solidstate Controls, Inc. 15-kVA UPS system never failed during the quake, some of its batteries fell and broke, accounting for a reduction in power of approximately 25%. Shortly after the quake, the bank relocated its entire operation. But because new UPS batteries had to be imported, the bank was forced to improvise its power protection for six months, using truck batteries to run the UPS. After the new batteries arrived, Chavez says the bank purchased a sturdier rack to prevent them from falling if another earthquake hits. Battery racks sold to companies in earthquake-prone regions are typically more structurally sound and can include side supports and straps that wrap around the entire rack to keep the batteries from falling. In addition, most companies bolt their racks and UPSs to the floor for further protection. Placing rubber bumpers and pads between the diesel generators and the floor can also limit the amount of movement during an earthquake. Away from the heatTo protect UPSs from fires, companies can also install halon and sprinkler systems in the UPS room, as many already do in their data centers. Robert Pozek, DP manager at the Arizona Automobile Association in Phoenix, says he purposely placed his 18-kVA RTE Deltec Corp. UPS in the company's main data center because the center already contained a halon system. If a fire or flood does occur in the room containing the UPS, companies should notify the fire department that an electrical system is present or, preferably, turn the UPS off. ``You have to be careful in the event of a flood that the power is either turned off or that people are aware that the UPS is active,'' says Ed Maggio, manager of disaster recovery at Computer Data Communications Services Agency, a New York-based service bureau for 20 city agencies. ``A lot of times, people run from an area [that has live power], and it's very dangerous for the fire department. Someone could be electrocuted.'' Maggio suggests that companies train their employees to deactivate the UPS during a flood or fire. Simply turning off the building's power will only cause the UPS to kick in, so an additional emergency switch to kill the UPS power is necessary, he says. To insulate a power system from fires raging in another part of the building, companies should keep their UPSs in rooms built with either concrete or two-hour-rated materials such as plasterboard. That rating, developed by the fire departments, means that it would take two hours for a fire to burn through the walls. Companies, especially those located in flood-prone regions, should also try to keep their UPSs out of the basement. All washed up According to William Kramer, president of Kramer Data Power, Inc. in Bensenville, Ill., one of his Chicago-based clients had its UPS damaged by water during a heavy rainstorm two years ago. The system was located in the basement along with the sump pumps, which were not hooked up to the UPS. The pumps subsequently stopped working when the main power went out, causing the basement to flood. If companies have no other place to put their UPSs, Kramer suggests they either install a redundant sump pump system or hook those pumps up to the UPS. At the very least, companies should avoid installing their UPSs underneath a main water pipe anywhere. Regardless of what additional protective measures organizations take to keep their UPSs up and running during a natural disaster, consultants involved with contingency planning and disaster recovery agree that preventive maintenance of the UPS is the best way to ensure that the power supply does what it is supposed to do, when it is supposed to do it. ``If you're going to invest in having a UPS, it certainly makes sense to spend $5,000 for an annual inspection of your facility,'' says Kenneth Brill, president of Computersite Engineering, a Cambridge, Mass.-based engineering consulting firm that specializes in disaster avoidance and site reliability. ``Disaster avoidance is not very sexy. But it is very cost-effective.'' By Sharon Baker; Baker is a Computerworld assistant editor, features. <<<>>> Title : Ask the vendor Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: atv2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Does AIM/SAFE 2000 provide a mechanism to allow users to develop a recovery plan? John E. Smith Disaster Recovery Analyst Board of Public Utilities Kansas City, Kansas ADVANCED INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, INC.: One of AIM/SAFE 2000's features is its ability to create and maintain an unlimited number of user recovery plans. The AIM/SAFE 2000 system provides three alternatives for user plan production. First, programs on floppy disks can be created to allow users to make their own plans. All the necessary software programs, including word processing and a database management system, are on these disks. The users simply enter the data and customize the text of their plans. Second, the disaster recovery manager may provide diskettes to users for their data input. These are then returned to the disaster recovery manager for text customization and production. Third, the disaster recovery manager may choose to collect the data and produce the user plans himself. Is Essential Software planning to eliminate Arise's support of SAS and/or the C List processor? Carl Gage Systems Manager Litton Computer Services Woodland Hills, Calif. ESSENTIAL SOFTWARE, INC.: Arise 2.0, which is scheduled for release in July, will no longer use an SAS database structure or make use of the C List processor within the product. Arise has been redesigned to use Essential Software's database and terminal management software products. <<<>>> Title : No absolute protection, b Author : Belden Menkus Source : CW Comm FileName: viruses Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: A recently completed test of 21 antiviral software products offers significant encouragement to those concerned with fighting computer viruses. According to Harold Joseph Highland, director of the study, a number of the products tested can be used successfully in most instances to prevent the execution of programs already infected by known computer viruses and to detect significant changes already made to systems by these viruses. Highland is editor of the journal, Computers & Security, and managing director of Compulit, Inc.'s Microcomputer Security Laboratory in Elmont, N.Y., one of the test sites for the project. The test was also conducted at Systems R&D, Inc. in Fort Lee, N.J. However, none of the products tested provides perfect protection, claims Jon David, director of Systems R&D. Most of them operate off-line, checking periodically for the presence of a virus. To become more useful, David suggests, a product would need to check continuously _ and transparently _ for the presence of a virus. Keeping pace As viruses become more complex and powerful, antiviral products will, in turn, need to be designed to counter such sophistication, Highland says. For example, future viruses will likely have the ability to reset internal program values instead of performing what Highland calls simple vandalism _ trashing a program's file allocation table. The next generation of viruses is likely to attack file content directly. Highland says a primitive batch-file infector has already appeared. As a result of the test project, improvements have been made in the design and performance of some of the products involved. David says developers of 15 of the products tested have used the study's results to improve their products. One problem unveiled was that most of the products were designed for use by those with a high degree of technical knowledge. The study also revealed that several of the antiviral products tested prevented any attempt by a program file to write to the boot sector. ``If such an attempt is made while the product is installed in the machine's hard disk,'' Highland says, ``a message will be displayed indicating that the next keystroke will reboot the system. But if the system needs to be restored after some failure, such a product will make it impossible to do this.'' Highland suggests installing a security override in the product to counteract this problem. Such a feature, which is now being added to some of those products tested, would permit an authorized individual to write to the system's boot sector during the restoration process. The test covered 80% of the available products. Some of these are commercially developed programs, while others are various forms of public-domain software products. Two testing sites were used to permit independent verification of the product analyses. The investigation of each antiviral product followed a strict 11-point protocol, under which all 21 antiviral products were tested against two commonly circulating viruses. The antiviral products that failed to identify either of these two viruses were tested against a number of other viruses. Highland says the report, which is scheduled to be released in May, will not recommend specific antiviral products but will be a forum for comparison. The document, titled ``The Computers & Security Computer Virus Handbook,'' will also include several research papers discussing the practical defenses against viruses and the development of corporate policies to deal with those threats. By Belden Menkus; Menkus is a Hillsboro, Tenn.-based security consultant and editor of ``Edpacs,'' a newsletter for electronic data processing auditors. <<<>>> Title : It pays to test all assum Author : Robert E. Johnst Source : CW Comm FileName: testside Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Without thorough testing of the recovery process, contingency planning is about as virile as a paper tiger. The plans may look capable, but chances are they won't be able to stand up to a real challenge. Companies find many excuses for failing to test their recovery schemes, but none of them hold up under scrutiny. The inescapable fact is that not testing the systems and procedures designed to guarantee delivery of reliable information to a business constitutes negligence. Ironically, an often-cited reason for not conducting tests is that they are too disruptive and that they might interfere with the daily business operation. Some companies, after installing the capacity to run on generator power, have never tried the backup system because they fear problems. The backup generators are maintained and tested independently, but they are never used in direct support of the computing environment. Others conduct limited semiannual or less frequent tests. Frequently, such tests involve the evaluation of a commercial hot site. Usually, these tests are limited to a period of 24 to 48 hours during a weekend. Rarely are all critical applications capable of being thoroughly tested. All too often, the test is declared a success if the operating environment can be established with network communications. But most major operations have three significant components _ the applications, the communications network and the operating system _ that need to be addressed in a disaster recovery plan. Some like to combine the latter two and refer to them as the operating environment. However, that approach is no longer realistic for contingency testing because individual network and operating system components must be evaluated separately if their collective value is to be accurately assessed. Therefore, testing each of the three components via desk check and live local procedures makes a lot more sense than the annual test at the hot site. Desk checks, conducted by the applications support staff and an analyst under the MIS director's direction, involve examining the crucial components of an organization's applications, discovering what critical inputs are dependent on other applications, what the important outputs are, whether those applications are properly backed up and what the user's needs are regarding recovery. Desk checks are usually conducted whenever a company updates its computer system or does some other major revision that might effect its recoverability. The checks are typically conducted every two or three years and can take anywhere from two to four months to complete. When properly conducted, a desk check test, which includes a standardized questionnaire that all participants answer, will reveal nearly all of a system's potential problems without the use of computing resources or in any manner jeopardizing the normal operating environment. The ingredient that makes the difference in such tests is an individual that understands application processing, the operating environment and contingency planning. It is not uncommon to have to conduct several desk checks on major applications before they are considered ready for a live local test. Live local test The live local test, which can be conducted during off-hours so as not to affect a business's daily operations, is a test of the recoverability at the normal processing site. In many cases, the most effective live local test of the operating system and network is following a routine recovery _ such as a quick reboot _ from a network and/or operating system failure. Every time a system faces a short downtime, the operations personnel should conduct a postrecovery analysis, introducing ``what-if'' scenarios to identify potential problems under more difficult conditions. When the desk checks are thorough, applications will survive the live local test without any identified problems. This is possible because the desk check evaluates a small enough component to be able to detect all problems. Problems related to the operating system and network are more often found in the live local test because of their complex integrated nature. As the success rate of the desk checks are proven by the successful live locals, it will no longer be necessary to conduct a live local on each component. Reasonable sampling will continue to prove the continued effectiveness of the desk checks. As a result, the annual test becomes an accurate indicator of the probability of success or failure. Undoubtedly, because of the perception that disaster recovery testing is counterproductive, few firms conduct such an ambitious testing scenario. The reality is that such a plan results in greatly improved daily operations, increased applications reliability and added user confidence. This occurs because testing becomes an ongoing, nondisruptive activity, rather than a periodic nemesis. By Robert E. Johnston; Johnston is a regional director at a Glastonbury, Conn.-based company that specializes in contingency planning software and information security consulting. <<<>>> Title : Gathering your firm aroun Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 313mftga Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Consultant Gordon A. McAlpine says that the road to corporate growth runs through computer integration of an enterprise. According to McAlpine, doing the best job of engineering or the best job of purchasing are actually by-products of the ultimate goal: building the finest product possible. McAlpine, founder of Engineering and Manufacturing Systems Consulting, based in Franklin, Mich., spoke recently with Gilsum, N.H.-based free-lance writer Janet Fiderio about the role that MIS managers and manufacturing professionals currently play in the integration process. Could you explain what you mean by ``computer integration of the enterprise.'' Using the computer to integrate all areas of the enterprise. Organizations that successfully integrate their operations show both improved productivity and profitability. The process of enterprise integration begins on three important levels: the MIS level, which is the business operation; the information that flows from MIS down through engineering, manufacturing and so on; and the factory floor. When all levels of the enterprise work together from a common integrated database, companies can reduce their costs, improve their quality and reduce their inventories. Who should make the decisions regarding a company's integration? Where do MIS and manufacturing managers fit into that picture? The impetus for integration has to come from top management. If you try to push the idea up through an organization, it won't be realized as fast. To get started, many companies form a team consisting of such relevant groups as engineering, purchasing, manufacturing and service-department people. Because the MIS manager is in the best position to generate, transmit and communicate information, he often leads this group. How can MIS and manufacturing managers drum up the support they need for enterprisewide integration? You must first get the corporate culture to understand what is going on. Then you have to go on and review your own operating values and assumptions and decide if they will work in the information era. An important step is to eliminate the traditional walls between departments. You need to start thinking about how you can work with your compatriot across the hall to achieve your common goal: building the best product with the best quality for the best price and delivering it on time. Do you find most professionals open to the team approach? Sometimes top managers fail to realize the potential of the new integrated information systems. In fact, many senior managers don't even want to get involved in new technologies. It's that kind of attitude that ends up really hurting manufacturing in our country. Can education help? It is important to begin education now for high school students and undergraduate college students as well as for the graduate students studying manufacturing systems. We cannot have single-discipline people involved in management anymore. AT&T has said that their best technical managers come out of the liberal arts schools. Do you have any advice for the manager about to undertake the integration process? Don't go into the process with any preconceived notions. Really brainstorm these ideas into a whole new way of doing business. <<<>>> Title : A two-decade MRP II effor Author : CW Staff Source : CW Comm FileName: 313mftgb Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: It took 20 years for Marley Cooling Tower Co. to get its MRP II system up and running. But since the three-year conversion was completed last month, it has already paid for itself. Marley, headquartered in Mission, Kan., manufactures water-cooling towers ranging from $1,000 truck-delivered stock units to huge million-dollar field-erected towers that are engineered to order. In the late 1960s, Marley acquired an IBM 4381 mainframe computer. Using its own programming staff, the company began trying to get its manufacturing processes under control. Writing its own manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) software proved to be too difficult. According to Jerry Gilligan, vice-president of production, Marley could not keep up with automated technology. ``We couldn't enhance these automated systems to satisfy our needs in terms of managing our business and scheduling the product,'' he said. Software was by no means the only problem. Raw materials, work in process and finished-goods inventory data on file in the computer was often no better than 60% accurate. Bill-of-materials data was just as bad. Furthermore, there was no centralized, integrated planning process that could coordinate purchasing, production and marketing. The result was dissatisfied customers and lost business because of the inability to deliver on schedule. In the early 1980s, top management appointed a task force to figure out what had to be done to improve the situation. The task force, headed by Gilligan, proposed that Marley spend $1.5 million over a two- to three-year period on a companywide ``closed-loop'' MRP II system. The system would integrate business, marketing, materials, production and financial planning using third-party software. The task force developed specifications and looked at approximately 15 different manufacturing software systems. It finally ended up selecting the 10-module AMAPS/Q package, then sold by Comserve, Inc. which has since been taken over by Management Science America, Inc. in Atlanta. Not just software Gilligan said that from the start, the task force distinguished between the MRP II project and the manufacturing software that would be used for MRP. ``It's a serious mistake to make the whole project just a software project,'' he said. ``There are so many other issues to address that have nothing to do with software.'' For example, there are inventory records. ``That's not a software problem,'' Gilligan says; ``that's a problem of whether you're going to keep accurate production-unit records or not.'' At Marley, engineers are now held responsible for the accuracy of bills of materials. AMAPS/Q was delivered in January 1986. After testing, it was turned over to users in March for a one-product pilot program. In November, a whole product line was cut over, and in February 1987, a whole plant. The last of Marley's five plants went on-line in February 1989. The conversion was not easy. Retraining required 25,000 hours of classroom instruction. No outside trainers were used; instead, the instuctors were Marley's operating managers. Nor were any outsiders brought in to do the initial setup and data entry work on the computer system. Despite the years spent floundering, statistics support Marley's implementation of MRP II. So far, inventory investment has been reduced by $10 million, or 33%. Inventory turnover has improved 70%. Labor productivity has improved 5% to 10%. As a result, customer service has improved as well. By Josh Brackett, Special to CW; Brackett is a free-lance writer who lives in Rockport, Mass., and specializes in computers and communications. <<<>>> Title : What ever happened to the Author : John Kirkley Source : CW Comm FileName: kirkley2 Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: It's hard to make a long-range plan when you're in the middle of a revolution. Whether storming the barricades or firing the shot heard round the world, when the going gets tough, you're busy just surviving. The personal computer revolution is no exception. It may lack the sweep and drama of other revolutions, but in the world of computing, its impact is no less momentous. Today's information systems managers are caught in the middle of this insurrection. And despite the turmoil surrounding the rise of end-user computing, IS managers are finding it increasingly necessary to take the time to make long-range strategic plans that include the PC. Not surprisingly, their approaches vary. Many IS managers do not have separate plans specifically devoted to personal computers; rather, PCs are considered as one more element in the strategic planning that reflects IS's commitment to achieving overall business goals. In some organizations, personal computers are characterized as just another piece of equipment that any well-outfitted employee is expected to have in the workplace. According to Bruce Hasenyager, director of the corporate MIS division at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York, ``When you buy personal computers by the thousands, you tend to view them as a commodity _ just another tool _ not much more than a chair or a table.'' However, Hasenyager adds, although an individual PC is almost in the same category as a telephone, deciding on the bus architecture is another matter entirely. Here, compatibility and connectivity issues have far-reaching corporatewide implications. What PC revolution? In reality, the so-called ``PC revolution'' does not exist. PCs are not, in themselves, the revolution. Rather, they have acted as a catalyst to fuel the real revolution within the corporate information systems world: the rise of end-user computing. In the 1960s and '70s, when there were no alternatives, users endured inevitable applications logjams, two-year backlogs, and, in many instances, viewed the DP department as a kind of corporate black hole in which work went in but never came out. Yesterday's DP managers, who focused on their technical expertise to the detriment of their people skills, sometimes alienated users and set them to grumbling about their lot in life. It is no wonder that when the personal computer appeared on the scene, particularly after IBM made it official, the users grasped the new machines to their bosom and, with cries of ``Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite,'' headed for the barricades. How should IS, still in the early stages of this insurrection, deal with the insurgents? The reactions can range from blithe indifference to stern repression _ or perhaps the forging of a new, cooperative relationship that recasts the roles of both the users and the IS function. The latter course was taken by the retail information services group at John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Boston. Carol Newman, a general director within the group, recognized the need to take on a proactive role in the growth of end-user computing as opposed to simply developing a long-range plan for PC hardware. In the middle of 1987, Newman's group assumed the responsibility for shifting the hardware core of some applications from mainframe-based dumb terminals to PCs. ``One of our first jobs was to migrate a PC application _ the creation of sales proposals _ from the mainframe to PCs in the field,'' she says. ``Because the equipment was not to be installed for nine months, we had a window to plan for the switchover.'' So Newman took the time to contract with the Boston Systems Group, Inc. (BSG), a management consulting firm specializing in strategic planning, to help John Hancock create an environment that would draw from its past experience with mainframe applications and BSG's expertise with PC applications. Among the work done by the retail group and BSG was the development of a systems methodology for the applications and the creation of a standard user interface. Standards and PC connectivity are especially critical for Hancock's corporatewide computing strategy. ``The company strongly supports decentralization,'' Newman points out. ``It's a very interactive process. One of our jobs is to make sure the users understand the importance of standardization and take a methodical approach to the introduction of technology.'' BSG's president, Theodore Klein, worked with Hancock to create an environment in which the PC application could flourish. He adds that developing such a strategic plan, which takes into account the continued introduction of PCs and the rise of end-user computing, is essential in today's IS environment. Klein's company deals mainly with Fortune 500 companies; he says, ``They are all handling the personal computer differently.'' The big question is the role of IS _ just who is to be in charge of building these networked, applications-oriented end-user systems? ``The companies we have worked with range from the extremes of total hands-off _ where MIS says, `We'll have nothing to do with PCs, they are strictly a departmental concern' _ to companies where the mainframes have been thrown out and the entire corporation is linked by PCs and workstations,'' Klein says. ``Most fall somewhere in the middle and are at various stages in their development.'' The middle ground is the territory being occupied by Hasenyager's organization at Merrill Lynch. Since joining the company in 1986, he has been busy consolidating all the systems development resources that support the company's chief financial officer and chief administrative officer. ``Workstations or PCs are windows into the world of applications,'' Hasenyager says. ``As our systems become more and more integrated and transparent, it becomes increasingly difficult to know where the data is. But that's not really an end-user concern. Today fewer people are concerned with complex technical details; we increasingly focus on what needs to be achieved.'' As at Hancock, Hasenyager points out that Merrill Lynch has no specific, separate, strategic PC plan. ``Our systems plans are directly connected to the company's strategic business plan,'' he says. ``Our systems plans, which have implications for mainframes and networks, as well as PCs and workstations, were designed to be enabling, to bring to the business people the capabilities they are going to need in the future without our having a total certainty about the direction their business will take.'' PC infiltration Naomi Karten, a Randolph, Mass.-based consultant who specializes in end-user computing, agrees with Hasenyager that PCs are generally considered part of an overall strategic plan. ``But,'' she cautions, ``PCs are still coming into the corporation in unplanned ways.'' The problem, she says, is that the information centers and other end-user support groups are inundated with work. At the same time, PCs continue to infiltrate corporations in large numbers, which is a trend that can lead to ``faulty applications and bad business decisions.'' Under these circumstances, ``Users are contributing to catastrophe,'' she says. Understaffed support centers are often unable to cope. ``Today's users are reliving all the old DP problems,'' Karten continues. ``But at least the early MIS people were familiar with planning methodology and knew they had to test applications.'' These days, more sophisticated users are presenting new, more sophisticated challenges to IS. Meeting those challenges head-on is Pillsbury Co., headquartered in Minneapolis. Under the guidance of Terry Marksberry, director of management systems, Pillsbury has become a leader in deploying local-area networks to link its PCs and workstations. Marksberry says Pillsbury's minimum standard for a PC had been an Intel Corp. 80286-based machine, but because end-user applications are increasing in size and complexity, Intel 80386-based Compaq Computer Corp. units are becoming its PC of choice. The company has a two-tier architecture: The PCs are connected directly to the IBM 3090 mainframe. Marksberry's group worked closely with Compaq and Novell, Inc. to develop an extensive LAN network, running 10M bit/sec. Ethernet over twisted-pair wiring. At the headquarters, 20 servers operate on a fiber-optic backbone. ``The PCs on the LAN are the gateway to the mainframe,'' he says. ``We have a rising demand for connectivity. . . . A year ago we had zero people using LANs; now there are over 700. By the end of this year, we plan to make LANs available to almost everyone in our General Foods subsidiary population.'' With the increase in PC and network usage, Marksberry, like Karten, says he is beginning to see users go through many of the same traumas suffered by IS in years gone by. With their newly acquired expertise with spreadsheets, databases and fourth-generation languages, users are turning to IS for help in developing applications. The result is the beginning of a new backlog of PC applications. As for the PC hardware, Marksberry also says it is regarded in much the same way as a telephone _ in many cases, it is an essential device that is part of every new employee's equipment. When viewed strategically, PCs are handled much like any other technology _ they must support the company's business goals and objectives. The pervasiveness of PCs is underscored by the existence of organizations like the Microcomputer Managers Association (MMA). The New York-based association, founded in the early 1980s, draws most of its more than 500 members from Fortune 1,000 companies. Leslie Fiering, an assistant vice-president at Bankers Trust Co. in New York, is a member of the MMA's executive board. Fiering's view of creating a separate strategic plan for the acquisition and implementation of PCs is simple: ``The PC plan cannot be drawn up separately from the overall strategic plan,'' she asserts. ``Companies that do this will be in big trouble five years from now.'' Fiering contends that ``the swing toward decentralization is over,'' in that the corporate IS department must be heavily involved in planning PC purchases and use. Distributed processing is a widespread reality and ``someone has to provide the coordination,'' she adds. ``In most cases, it's corporate MIS.'' Fiering urges companies to plan centrally but implement locally. Technically gifted people are certainly needed at the user level, she admits, but they also must be able to understand the users' problems. She also stresses the importance of PCs and connectivity and sees the biggest challenge to IS as building a viable communications infrastructure. `That's life' The Emhart Corp. in Hartford, Conn., is still highly decentralized, and just keeping track of its diversified businesses is a major challenge. Emhart has more than 20 separate business units and 30,000 employees worldwide. ``We've standardized on IBM, DEC, DG, Unisys, HP, Datapoint, NCR . . . ,'' laughs David Dandro, vice-president of information systems. ``It's not a problem _ that's life,'' he says. At Emhart, PCs are used strategically by the corporate staff and the business units, and they are key elements in many applications. At one major location, sales representatives are using Grid Systems Corp.'s Grid Lite laptops in the field to enhance their productivity and gain a competitive edge. A key use is accessing the unit's mainframe using the laptops and Cullinet Software, Inc.'s IDMS database to obtain customer data. In another instance, Emhart corporate staff worked closely with Orion Micro Systems, Inc. in the early development of a PC-based software package called FDC/Pyramid. The commercial software streamlines the collection of monthly financial data from the business units, reduces errors and considerably speeds up the consolidation and reporting process back at headquarters. As far as creating separate long-range plans for PCs, Dandro says, ``We don't develop strategic plans for telephones or workstations. We've increased our threshold of pain as far as allowing users to select what they want.'' At Emhart, the fundamental business applications are not being written by users with PCs, Dandro says. These are still run on minicomputers and mainframes. But within the units, a whole range of PC-based tools are available to help them do their work. ``Our role at corporate,'' he points out, ``is to provide planning and oversight to all Emhart's companies. We have to respond to each unit's particular needs.'' As end-user computing becomes more widespread, new users will begin to turn to new technologies to help make business decisions. Patricia Seybold, head of Patricia Seybold's Office Computing Group in Boston, looks beyond today's end-user revolution and observes that, over the next five years, business executives will become the next significant segment of PC users. They will require flexible, easy access to databases and the ability to generate and retrieve reports customized for their specific use. Artificial intelligence-driven, object-oriented programming languages that act as intermediaries between the database and the user will be needed. (See story page 103.) ``MIS soon will need to recruit new programmers who can deal with this changing environment _ people who are familiar with AI and object-oriented languages,'' Seybold points out. Moving in that direction, she says, are systems like Metaphor Computer Systems, Inc.'s Metaphor, a flexible set of tools that allow users to create simple to very elaborate applications programs. New Wave from Hewlett-Packard Co. and Digital Equipment Corp.'s Compound Document Architecture are also steps in this direction. No easy answers Because IS is in the midst of the end-user revolution, aided and abetted by new tools and the rapidly increasing power of desktop computing, there are no easy answers when it comes to planning the role of PCs as a part of the ``strategic computing initiative,'' as BSG's Klein calls it. What is apparent is that focusing on the PC as a discrete element in the overall information systems structure is taking an extremely myopic point of view. As Elaine Bond, vice-president of corporate systems at Chase Manhattan Bank Corp., has observed, ``The network has become the computer.'' IS is in the process of building complex, integrated systems that will allow users to build applications not even dreamt of today. Emhart's Dandro points out, ``We need to stimulate the users to come up with more interesting applications, rather than becoming enamored with the technology. By John Kirkley; Kirkley is a computer industry writer, editor and consultant based in Warwick, N.Y. <<<>>> Title : Who controls PC plans? Author : John Kirkley Source : CW Comm FileName: kirkside Date : Mar 20, 1989 Text: Is MIS involved in personal computer planning? When John M. Blair of The Dooley Group in Carefree, Ariz., dipped into the database that his group has maintained since 1985, the results were revealing. Blair found that in most companies, PCs represent a total computing resource greater than the central system maintained by MIS. ``The planning for the use of the personal computer resource is, at best, ad hoc and fragmented,'' Blair says. ``Budgets are the extent of most plans.'' He looked at a sample of 50 surveys completed in 1987 and 1988, and from their collective base of more than 250 respondents, zeroed in on MIS involvement in PC planning. He asked several yes-or-no questions. When asked, ``Are PCs budgeted outside of MIS?'' 82% of the respondents said yes, and 18% said no. To the question, ``Does the IS plan include end-user architecture?'' 88% said yes, and 12% said no. The query, ``Does the IS plan include micro applications?'' garnered 74% yes and 26% no answers. And finally, when asked, ``Does the IS plan include the information center?'' 56% said yes, and 44% answered no. According to Blair, ``One way to interpret this data is that MIS provides an on-demand consulting service through the information center to those who purchase the PCs. MIS does little to provide an infrastructure to guide and facilitate the use of information technology.'' Three firms that participated in the surveys were selected by Blair as representative of a spectrum of approaches. One, a utility company, has strong central control of the PC budget and carefully determines who receives PCs and what software is used. Their long-range planning included an emphasis on mainframe applications and networks to support these applications. One PC user nearly lost his job when he independently contracted with a solo programmer to develop software to integrate several mainframe applications so he could do them at his PC. At the other end of the spectrum is an organization that provides support to its PC users through an information center and provides a PC programming support staff that develops mainframe applications. Somewhere in the middle, and typical of many organizations, is an IS department for a large city government. A well-regarded information center provides on-demand services to the users. No attempt is made to plan or influence the use of technology. In this particular setup, the information center is generally biased toward IBM-compatible hardware, but there is a growing base of Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh users. ``The senior MIS executive at the utility and at the city share a general concern regarding their planning and the service provided for personal computers,'' Blair points out. ``Both believe a far greater integration of microcomputers, mainframes and minicomputer systems is inevitable. [But] both have been unable to move their middle management to do any meaningful work on realizing this integration of technology,'' he claims. JOHN KIRKLEY