Making a committment to IBM’s Systems Application Architecture, Data General Europe has now announced those Open Systems Interconnection networking products unveiled by the US parent at the beginning of last month (CI No 1,111). It also announced two other communications software products: DG/3270 Gateway offers communications between IBM personal computers on a local network and […]
Making a committment to IBM’s Systems Application Architecture, Data General Europe has now announced those Open Systems Interconnection networking products unveiled by the US parent at the beginning of last month (CI No 1,111). It also announced two other communications software products: DG/3270 Gateway offers communications between IBM personal computers on a local network and an IBM host, while Data General/Host Electronic Office, DG/HEO, gives IBM 3270 users access to a subset of Data General Office Automation tools. Though it has adopted DG/OSI Communications Architecture as its primary architecture, it says it will attempt to provide a choice of networking protocols; the company also says it is committed to IBM’s Common Programming Interface, Communications. Looking towards the 1990s, Data General management says strategy will be tp focus on combining local and wide area networks, with the inclusion of Open Systems Interconnection, IBM’s Systems Application Architecture and Integrated Services Digital Networking; president and chief executive Edson de Castro says that IBM’s SAA will be its strategic blueprint, with X500 as the fundamental technology on which to build its directory services. New applications will include Apple Computer Macintosh and Token Ring integration products by the end of the year. The company claims the products announced last month mean that it is able to provide a seven layer implementation of the Open Systems model. Data General’s DG/File Transfer, Access and Management, DG/FTAM, is a software package that, it claims, allows Eclipse MV series users on an Open network to perform file transfer with other systems that comply with the OSI/FTAM. DG/FTAM, available fourth quarter 1989, requires DG/OpenNMS, launched in October, the new DG/OTS and Data General’s AOS/VS II operating system; prices range from $1,500 to $17,400. Data General claims a second product, the DG/OSI Applications Platform Interface, DG/OAPI, enables resellers to create Open Systems applications able to communicate across heterogenous networks. DG/OAPI is composed of a library of C language subroutine calls, and requires DG/OTS and AOS/VS II; it is available in the fourth quarter 1989, priced from $2,500 to $29,500. Data General also has the DG/OSI Transport Services platform, DG/OTS; this is a communications platform composed of OSI layers two to seven. A superset of Data General’s Xodiac Transport Services, it is claimed to provide routing and end system transport sevices over local and wide area networks. It needs AOS/VS II and will be available in the quarter at from $900 to $10,400.