DEC says that the move has been welcomed by its OEM customers, but it nevertheless looks likely to take some business away from the traditional UK defence contractors such as Systems Designers Plc: DEC has formed a UK Defence Programmes Sales Group to take a more active role in addressing the UK defence market, and has its eye on a substantial share of the UKP200m Ministry of Defence business currently up for grabs; reasons for the move are that the VAX has become a de facto standard in many defence applications, and because computer hardware is increasingly the major part of many defence procurements; areas of specialisation will be command, control and communications systems, office automation, and decision support expert systems.
