IBM shattered the pre-Christmas somnolence yesterday with a whole swathe of disconnected announcements, mostly simply notification that products previously announced for shipping this month, are on schedule. Premier among these is VM/XA SP-2, which ships Friday for 3090s and 4381s and supports up to six preferred guests on a single processor; over 5,500 users on an electronic mail network, up from about 1,400; and full support of the Extended Architecture input-output subsystem; it also supports MVS/ESA guests, aiding migration and testing. Bimodal Conversation Monitor System enables applications to use up to 999Mb, up from 16Mb. On a small 4381, VM/XA SP-2 is $3,825 a month. Even the news in the announcement, that the Convertible laptop is moribund, is not really news. IBM is clearing out the inventory by slashing prices, so that the standard model system unit with display and keyboard is cut 31.5% to $1,000. The skinniest configurati on is cut 67% to $480, while stocks last. The printer cable, a rip-off at $47, is now just $8. Since it was announced in April, Data Facil ity Data Set Services 2.4, due Dec ember 30, is enhanced with faster dump-restore using 64Kb blocks. And DOS/VSE SP 4.1, announced Sept ember and out Friday, adds support for the 3990-3 Cache Controller. And ACF/SSP 3.4.1, announced in September, is now available this Friday – earlier than was promised.
