Inglewood, California-based Locus Computing Corp is attempting to raise its European profile, and is re-positioning itself as a specialist distributed computing consultancy, design, development and services outfit. It is emphasising these offerings rather than the emulation software products for which it is traditionally known – what it now calls a secondary stream. According to Carl Chilley, principal business services consultant, the problem with distributed computing has been that it has encouraged the development of technology for technology’s sake, without real thought as to how to implement it effectively in a business environment. This is, of course, where Locus comes in. It intends to offer customers strategic business planning as well as interoperability strategies for the future. It reckons it is well placed given its behind-the-scenes work in helping to develop some important interoperability features for Unix: it also developed the Transparent Computing Facility for IBM Corp’s AIX and a remote procedure call test and validation suite for the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Computing Environment. Locus believes the future of distributed computing lies in transaction processing, saying that this will drive the distributed systems market in the same way that databases drove the client-server market. Locus has four offices in the US, which have generated most of its income. The European head quarters are in Hemel Hempstead, Hert fordshire, and there is another office in Leeds, but Locus is aiming to broad en its European base by means of acqui sitions on the continent: the first one is expected by the end of this year.
