In the UK, Financial Solutions Ltd, based in Basingstoke, Hampshire, is releasing its Open1 accounting package, for Digital Equipment Corp’s implementation of OSF/1 and other Unix environments. Open1, a multi-lingual and multi-currency package, works with Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix and RdB databases, supporting X Window, Motif, Macintosh and Microsoft Windows graphical user interfaces. Why OSF/1? Because while the market is very segmented on OSF/1, we believe the Open Software Foundation will deliver, says Financial Solutions’ sales and marketing director, Nigel Heath. Heath admits any widespread adoption of the Foundation’s operating system is unlikely to take place until the end of the 1990s, but firmly believes the future of open systems lies with OSF/1 and its successors – not Unix System V.4. He is sceptical about DEC’s involvement with Advanced Computing Environment consortium, but says the company will follow that direction if software and hardware vendors show sufficient interest. Open1 ships in April with prices going from UKP5,000 at the entry level to over UKP500,000 for high-end users. It will be available under DEC VAX/VMS, OSF/1, and on Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM Corp, Pyramid Technology Corp, Sequent Computer Systems Inc and Unisys Corp Unix systems.
