ICL Inc, the US arm of Fujitsu Ltd’s ICL Plc, has signed up Amdahl Federal Service Corp as a reseller for its Dialogue Manager software, which provides desktop access to legacy data, and promises a further deal with a large supplier of systems to US government and financial institutions in the near future. The company also announced a sale, to New Jersey’s Public Electric and Gas Co. Dialogue Manager enables users to export legacy data into PC applications. Using PowerBuilder and Visual Basic graphical user interface development tools, the package is also intended for programmers building software packages that provide a single unified point of access to multiple host applications, either via an internet browser or a Windows interface. ICL typically distributes the software through specialist third party resellers who then add value, building in further features and support for other applications where necessary. Siemens Nixdorf Health Systems currently sells the product into the UK health market under the Open Guide brand. The company says the new deal will give it access to the US government market; Amdahl Federal Service is the latest of around fifty resellers worldwide. ICL says it will be releasing Dialogue Manager 4.2 shortly, adding support for IBM AS/400, 3270 and 5250 terminals, and integrating the latest versions of PowerBuilder and Visual Basic. The product now runs on any Unix machine supporting VT emulations, and on most Windows environments.
