British Telecommunications Plc’s BT Tymnet unit announced yesterday that it was converting its message-switching host software to run on fault-tolerant Tandem Computers Inc hardware, saying that the move to migrate the EDI*Net customer base from IBM to Tandem would provide improved production quality because of Tandem’s NonStop technology; additional security with each mailbox having a separate password; an improved operations interface with windows rather than line-by-line presentation; improved customer service from availability of more tools; and increased functionality-foundation for applications such as SNA access, EDIfact exchange, X400 communications and priority interval delivery. The company also announced that next year the EDI*Net service, developed and operated by Tymnet in the US, would be launched in the UK, and that access would will be available throughout Europe over the new Global Network Service. British Telecom will use UN/EDIfact as its preferred message standard for electronic data interchange for corporate applications but the commercial EDI*Net will support all the major EDI message standards and ultimately, it plans to migrate to the internationally agreed X400 standard for messaging, run over X25 lines. BT Tymnet is certifying DECEDI, Unisys EaDI and Tandem NonStop EDI for use with EDI*Net.
