Underlining the extent to which the old order has broken up, Digital Equipment Corp has decided that rather than develop its own network management system, it will adopt IBM Corp’s NetView as its own product – no mention of the fact that NetView/6000 is based on parts of Hewlett-Packard Co’s OpenView – IBM licensed the OpenView Network Node Manager and Network Management Server to be the basis of NetView/6000 back in 1991.DEC is licensing IBM’s NetView/6000 and will convert it to run under the DEC OSF/1 variant of Unix on the new 64-bit Alpha AXP processor; it will be out in first quarter 1994, and will be marketed as Polycenter NetView. The two will develop future NetView/6000 and Polycenter NetView versions from a single code base and will release products simultaneously on both DEC and IBM hardware. The agreement also covers joint network and systems management product research and development, and joint product announcements, and recruitment of management application developers to join a combined IBM and DEC programme – a merger of the Polycenter Partners programme and the NetView/6000 Association into a single, enhanced programme providing consistent and standard application programming interfaces and an end-user interface. Polycenter NetView will be DEC’s network management system for Alpha AXP and will be enhanced to support management of DEC’s network environment, and provide customers with a framework for integration of other network and systems management applications. DEC promises continued support for its current Polycenter products on VAX/VMS and RISC/Ultrix and special introductory offers for customers that want to go to Polycenter NetView.
