Siemens AG has moved to pacify worried users of Nixdorf Computer AG’s Comet suite of easily customised business software, saying it will remain a central product after Nixdorf disappears into Siemens-Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG. To back up this promise, reports Computerwoche, the Paderborner is offering a range of new Comet products for Unix – but the message to customers is clearly that Nixdorf is not in any great hurry to make the transition from its proprietary 8870 line – it is promising a fast 64-user, 32-bit successor to the 16-bit 8870/Quattro range. Comet Top should itself be enhanced with one or two additional features, such as a report-writer, by the end of this year. A series of modules will be added for production control, time-recording and invoicing, as well as wages applications. The main focus of Nixdorf’s activities lies in enabling Comet software to be used with the Unix and MS-DOS operating systems. So, from the end of this year Nixdorf will be offering its Cross-Basic interpreter, running under Comet, for SCO Unix from the Santa Cruz Operation, and for Siemens’ MX-I system, which runs Sinix Unix, from mid-1991. Versions for Nixdorf’s Targon Unix machines, and for MS-DOS, are already on the market and versions for Novell NetWare networks should be available by the end of 1990. The company made the announcements to back up promises made to the pressure group of Comet users (CI No 1,482). But there was no mention of Alexander, a long-pro mised native Unix version of Comet.
