Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire-based Digital Communications Associates UK Ltd has launched IRMA Workstation for Windows – a Windows 3.0-compatible 3270 communications software package. This is Digital Communications’ latest move to add Windows 3.0 compatibility to its existing communications products. Last year, in response to market trends, the company launched CrossTalk for Windows, the latest upgrade in its CrossTalk range of asynchronous communications software packages for personal computers; and 10Windows – a Windows-compatible version of Digital Communications’ 10NET Plus network operating system aimed primarily at peer-to-peer networking architectures. Digital Communications’ flagship IRMA terminal emulation boards and communications software link non-IBM computers to IBM mainframes. The company does not consider Memorex Telex International a rival in 3270 emulation, since Memorex has an OEM contract with Digital Communications to integrate its emulation cards and software into its 3270-compatible workstations. Taking this into account, Digital Communications reckons it has 40% to 45% of the worldwide 3270 emulation market – and UK sales manager Lindsay Cox points out that IBM itself used to be Digital Communications’ biggest customer before it brought out its own communications products. The new IRMA Workstation for Windows product is claimed to be Systems Application Architecture Common User Access-compliant and supports IBM’s CUT – Control Unit Terminal, DFT – Distributed Function Terminal, SDLC protocol, and Token-Ring connections to an IBM host, emulating IBM 3270 monochrome or colour display terminals. It supports Microsoft Windows Dynamic Data Exchange, enabling data to be copied directly from the mainframe to the micro where it simultaneously alters whenever data is changed on the host. The other new feature of the Windows version of IRMA Workstation – the DFT implementation – enables five 3270 programs to be run concurrently on the mainframe. Digital Communications’ latest piece of hardware, launched in December at UKP600, is IRMAtrac, a dual-bus Token Ring adaptor board, based on Digital Communications’ Versatile Interface Chip, that can connect AT bus or Micro Channel personal computers to a 4Mbps or 16Mbps network. Lindsay Cox makes no bones about the fact that this product is a direct attack on IBM’s Token Ring adaptors, whose top of the range 16Mbps product costs UKP611. IRMAtrac supports IEEE 8802.5 and 802.2 and is compatible with IBM software. It also supports Digital Communications, IBM, Microsoft, Novell and 3Com network operating systems. Further evidence that Digital Communications is hot on the heels of IBM is in its Select family of products for the client-server environment, which are jointly developed with Microsoft. Select’s only competition is IBM’s OS/2 Extended Edition – but Digital Communications claims that Extended Edition does not fully employ client/server architecture – instead of most data processing taking place at the server leaving the workstation free for other applications, IBM processes most of the communications protocol at the client-end.
