Hitachi Ltd has now followed Fujitsu Ltd in expanding the range of communications protocols supported by its Hitachi Network Architecture with release EX2 to increase support for alien systems in multi-vendor networks: the new release will support both Open Systems Interconnection distributed processing and virtual terminals, and TCP/IP; Message Handling System is in the plan and Hitachi’s 560/20 terminal protocol will now be supported in an OSI network, and through use of a gateway server from Cisco Systems Inc, Menlo Park, California, whose products are sold in Japan by Net-One Systems Inc: TCP/IP is now supported under the Hitachi’s proprietary VOS3 and VOS K operating systems; electronic data interchange based on ANSI X12 and ISO EDIfact has been implemented using Translator software from Sterling Software Inc, Dallas.
