IBM yesterday duly made its massive OfficeVision announcement to bring Systems Application Architecture to life, but the thing had been so well leaked that there were no real surprises – just scores of new software applications designed to provide a framework for building co-operative corporate-wide office automation systems on MVS and VM mainframes, PS/2 workstations and AS/400s – with most of the key products not deliverable until March next year. The announcement includes OfficeVision/2 LAN Series; OfficeVision/400 Series – effectively an extension of OS/400 Office; OfficeVision/VM Series; and OfficeVision/MVS Series, each of which will be described in detail in future issues. IBM did its best to reassure Profs and DisOSS users that they were not up a blind alley, but could now see the basis of the next release; in particular, the Profs interface lives; as for DisOSS, with OfficeVision/MVS, MVS users get the biggest boost in functionality in the announcement. The new OS/2 Extended Edition 1.2 is enhanced with a Dialog Manager that conforms to SAA, and adds an SAA Procedures Language to enable programmers to write command procedures in a clear, structured way. Its Communications Manager now supports SNA gateway, Ethernet DIX Version 2.0 and IEEE 802.3, X25, async and 3270 terminal emulation, modified to enable them to run as Presentation Manager applications. And Easel for OS/2 Extended from Interactive Images is being offered as a means to migrate applications to PS/2s from dumb terminals.
