The Postal side of the Polish Post, Telegraph and Telephone company, which was split off from the telecommunications side back in January, is to become one of the earliest recipients of an IBM Corp mainframe running the firm’s AIX Unix implementation. The machine, an ES/9000 9121 Model 190 is to be used in conjunction with RS/6000s as front-end processors and 150 PS/1s and PS/2s as data entry and enquiry terminals, and replaces an ageing key-to-disk IBM 360-type Rjad mainframe. Its task is to run the clearing house for monetary transactions being wired in and out of the country, and will provide on-line facilities for the first time, as well as better monitoring and tracking facilities. According to an IBM spokesman, AIX on a mainframe was chosen because requirements are expected to grow, with other postal functions likely to be taken on. Skilled Unix technicians are also easier to find in Poland than traditional systems people. Both AIX on the RS/6000 and OSF/1 on the mainframe have full National Language Support, as does Oracle Forms and SQL, which is being used to write the software. IBM says it competed with Amdahl Corp, Unisys Corp and some of the top-end Unix vendors over the contract, which was signed last December, but won out because of its integration skills. Training is currently taking place, with delivery this month to the headquarters in Bydgoszcz, in the northwest of the country, with installation next month.
