Information Presentation Technologies Inc, the Calabasas, California company in which Sony Corp has just taken a 20% stake (CI No 1,300) has begun shipment of PSN, which it claims is the only Macintosh-to-Macintosh distributed server networking software to provide full compliance with the Apple Filing Protocols: through this compliance, PSN creates the first AppleShare environment that does not require a dedicated Macintosh as a server, the company claims, noting that previous attempts to network Macintoshes without a dedicated server, notably TOPS, have not conformed to AppleShare and thus are unable to run many programs that are important to Macintosh users – especially database applications; PSN uses Apple’s AppleShare client-user interface, file permission levels and privileges, and file and record locking, so that multi-user databases like FoxBase and 4th Dimension can be used with other Macintoshes in the network; the economies of peer-to-peer networking are preserved, while the network acts fully like AppleShare to users; PSN will be introduced nationally in the US in first quarter 1990, and costs $190 for one user, $290 for two, $530 for four, $1,000 for 10.
