The Siemens Informationstechnik Anwenderverein eV – trust the Germans to require more than a line just to say Siemens User Group – is seeking to recruit Nixdorf systems users as members a decision that was reached at a meeting in September. But the way the Siemens club is going about this leaves no doubt as to who wears the trousers in the partnership between Siemens and Nixdorf – members think that to change the group’s name would be unnecessary – after all, Siemens has the majority holding in the new company, and Nixdorf users need to be kept in their place. The user group also has designs to represent users of Siemens’ Hicom PABX family. This telephone business was not included in the fusion of the two companies, though the Hicoms will continue to be marketed by the new Siemens-Nixdorf Informationssyteme AG through the union of computer users. Former Nixdorf users and future Siemens-Nixdorf users also have the oppurtunity to get involved in the EDV-Anwenderkreis eV group in Weikersheim. On October 26, reports Computerwoche, the group will hold its annual general meeting in Bad Mergentheim, to which Quattro users – previously 8870 users – will also be invited. While present and future Siemens users are involved in their group, the Nixdorf user groups – the Nixdorf-Benutzergruppe and the Interessenverband der Nixdorf-DV-Anwender – are displaying fighting spirit, still running and making sure Nixdorf users aren’t neglected. While NiBeg is attending to the fate of the 8890 users, the INA is trying to clarify the 8870 users’ situation – it has commissioned a survey to look into, for example, the sorts of hard- and software problems that unhappy Nixdorf user firms might be having.
