Systems management facilities that bring Unix up towards the functionality of proprietary operating systems are becoming fashionable, now that Unix machines are at last starting to offer comparable performance and reliability at better price-performance levels for demanding commercial applications. Aside from the Open Software Foundation’s moves to establish its own standards in this area, New Zealand company Best Knowledge Systems Pty Ltd, part of the Sydney, Australia-based Lionel Singer Organisation, is starting to raise its profile outside its home territory, and has signed a deal with UK software distributor Open Systems Marketing Ltd, of Windsor in Berkshire. The Ease Suite of systems management packages has already been taken up by hardware manufacturers such as AT&T and Pyramid Technology, and offers the sort of facilities that users of ICL’s VME and DEC’s VMS operating systems are surprised not to find already as part of Unix. With four years of development including its own implementation of the ISAM file system, cpio utilities and 650,000 lines of C code behind it, the suite now consists of six modules, which include menu security, an administrative front-end, a customisation language for OEM buyers, advanced print spooler, archive organisation utility and a batch job scheduler. An X Window System version is on the way. Open Systems Marketing says it is ready to sign major OEM customers and systems houses for the modular toolset package.
