AT&T Co’s Unix Software Operation last week announced an important strategic alliance with Retix Corp that will see the integration of the current Retix Open Systems Interconnection technologies tightly coupled with AT&T’s Unix System V Release 3 and 4 Streams communications software (CI No 1,437). The duo will also co-fund and co-develop future products and jointly market and support the results. The promise of Open Systems availability should give OEM customers for System V.4 a leg-up in enterprise networks and the lucrative government market when GOSIP compliance becomes mandatory this August. Unix Software vice-president Joel Applebaum indicated that current Retix products will be integrated into V.4 within six months. They will, however, be sold unbundled so customers that don’t want them need not take them. The Open Systems Interconnection functionality offered in the initial product will include X400 messaging and X.500 directory services, File Transfer, Access and Management, Network Management Services and Virtual Terminal. The pact also provides for TCP/IP-to-OSI migration products, including gateways to TCP/IP-based electronic mail and file transfer applications. The Retix technologies will be built on top of AT&T’s CP1 Open Communications Platform, the kernel-optimisedcore stack detailed in February. AT&T said it chose Retix, a 400-man, $50m-a-year company based in Santa Monica, California, because it dominates the Open Systems-for-Unix market, and has now supplied its Open technology to some 150 OEM customers worldwide.
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