Last December we reported that Digital Equipment Corp’s Network Application Services – the software architecture designed to provide links between DEC machines and to non-DEC kit was in the process of being scrapped (CI No 2,070) tomorrow should see its replacement and the company is promising a huge client-server splurge with 150 new products and services on show. US PC Week reports Rich Whitman, director of the company’s recently created Client/Server Program Office as saying that the new strategy will have much greater reliance on third-party software and application programming interfaces that Network Applications Services. NAS is now apparently seen as being too ambitious and all-encompassing; it was originally compared to IBM’s System Application Architecture, and now appears to have suffered the same problems. DEC has reportedly identified six categories of client-server computing, and has dubbed them Frameworks – each of which be filled either with tweaked NAS applications or bought-in offerings. The paper says that first up will be a new groupware package called LinkWorks, based on ObjectWorks technology DEC acquired from Austrian software house FABA GmbH. On the hardware side the company will launch a new low-end AXP 2000 model 300s server designed to run OSF/1, Open VMS and Windows NT. Five other higher end machines are also expected: the Model 600s and Model 800 DEC 3000 workstations and servers will be based on 182MHz Alpha CPUs. The biggest new machines will be the DEC 4000 Model 710 and 720 and the 200MHz Alpha AXP DEC 7000 Model 700.
