Novell Inc will bundle an enhanced version of its Message Handling Service into NetWare from the first quarter of 1988. MHS, developed by Novell in conjunction with Action Technologies Inc of Emeryville, California, is designed to allow developers to easily add communications capabilities to their applications without having to program all the details of dialing, maintaining routing tables, error checking, storing and forwarding. The new version will include additional programming utilities to make writing to the MHS interface easier. To date, Novell has shipped over 40 MHS developers toolkits, but, by bundling MHS with NetWare, Novell is hoping to persuade other developers that there will be a large enough user base for them to tar-get with new applications. Novell says developers working on distributed databases, electronic mail, remote order entry and financial reporting services E-MHS applications are among those who have announced future support for MHS. Through Soft-Switch Inc’s Mailbridge Server, MHS already provides electronic mail conversion to allow users to send mail to and from IBM’s PROFS and DEC’s All-In-One office automation systems, without regard to the user’s location and choice of mail system. Novell claims MHS has the potential to revolutionise information delivery capabilities for personal computer users. It runs standalone on MS-DOS 3.0 or above or networked on NetWare, 3Com’s 3+, IBM’s PC LAN, Microsoft’s MS-NET and Banyan’s Vines. MHS communicates over a variety of media in-cluding asynchronous connections via dial-up telephone lines, as well as X25 and SNA networks. The MHS toolkit and documentation will be available for $100 in the first quarter of 1988 from Novell’s headquarters in Provo, Utah.
Content from our partners
