Molecular Design Ltd, San Leandro, California-based provider of informmation management systems and subsidiary of Robert Maxwell’s Maxwell Communications Plc, has announced the formation of a relationships with IBM and Fujitsu to ensure that Molecular Design software for managing and communicating scientific information will run on their computers, and with pharmaceutical companies, Eli Lilly and Co, Glaxo Inc and ICI Pharmaceutical to participate in software development ensuring that it will meet their needs. These companies have joined together to help design an integrated information system with a uniform user interface, capable of supporting multiple data types such as chemical structures, graphs and charts, efficient links between workstations and mini and mainframe computers and able to adopt an open architecture with documented modular interfaces to system components. Features of the software will include a graphical user interface and integration between workstation and host. Processes will be distributed between workstation and host applications for research and development in areas such as chemical structure drawing and other graphic applications, and document preparation, on the workstation and both local and remote searching of databases. The software will include connections to Molecular Design host software and will be used by Eli Lilly on Macintosh workstations networked to cluster VAXs for specific areas of its research programme. For ICI the software will run on a variety of networked machines with interfaces tailored to ICI’s specifications, and connections its clustered VAX computers. For the Japanese pharmaceutical market, the software will run on Fujitsu’s FMR personal computers through a Kanji version of Microsoft Windows. The Califonian company believes that Fujitsu is vital for sales success in Japan as it has a significant share of the Japanese market share in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Molecular Design’s scientific software will also run on IBM PS/2 machines under OS/2 and Presentation Manager as well as under DEC’s VAX/VMS, Hewlett-Packard’s HP 9000 Series 300 and 800 graphics workstations running the HP-UX Unix operating system.
