Microsoft Corp and Digital Communications Associates Inc officially announced version 1.1 of their jointly developed Select Communications Server in Brussels this week. It offers full-blown support for Windows 3.0, MS-DOS, OS/2 Presentation Manager and communication with Novell Inc NetWare servers. Select CS was developed by Digital Communications and Microsoft as a LAN Manager-IBM Systems Network Architecture communication program before the war of words between IBM and Microsoft started. However, this new version, running under the recently announced LAN Manager 2.0, still keeps to the original brief as a link to the IBM mainframe environment. Support for Logical Unit 6.2 and node type 2.1 is intended to enable the user to write easily accessible applications across an SNA network. The new version includes agents to IBM’s NetView network management system, not System Center Inc’s Net/Master alternative, which supports more heterogeneous networks, although Digital Communications said that had been considered. Other features include dynamic routing, SDLC links, X25 and Token Ring support. Jose Riquez, managing director of DCA Europe, refused to be drawn on the number of Select CS’s sold on LAN Manager. According to him Europe is a more successful market than the US, although interestingly he estimates that of 30% of all LAN Managers sold, 30% were running Select CS, a figure that rises to 85% for LAN Manager.During the LAN Manager 2.1 presentation, Microsoft explained that the Remote Access module, which enables the user to log onto a LAN Manager network from a remote location, supports modems approved by most national PTTs, though not in Belgium. Going strictly by the book as far as the RTT is concerned, several lines of script would have to be added, about 15Kb in all, in order to get it to work with approved equipment. The Belgian RTT has also decided to stick out its neck and become the only PTT that disapproves of the new generation of integrated facsimile modems to be found in many of the new notebook computers – generate too much line noise, it claims. All of which means that there are quite a few Belgians out there using illegal modems.
