What the computer world really needs now is another industry body – Forum, Council, Foundation, what you will, and we begin to wonder whether it’s all someone’s fiendish plot to get all the top executives of the world’s computer companies so busy attending meetings of the clubs to which their firms belong that they never have time to get any real work done: at all events, 24 companies came together the other day to form, the Open LAN Manager Council at Microsoft Corp’ headquarters in Redmond, Washington; the Council was formed to help ensure interoperability between OEM versions of Microsoft LAN Manager and the 24 are AT&T Co, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp, Groupe Bull SA, Olivetti Systems & Networks, Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Oki America Inc, Data General Corp, Parallan Computer Inc, Digital Equipment Corp, Philips Electronics Ltd, Fujitsu America Inc, Schneider & Koch GmbH, Hewlett-Packard Co, Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems AG, Hitachi Ltd, Santa Cruz Operation Inc, ICL Plc, Tricord Systems Inc, IBM Corp, Tulip Computers NV, NCR Corp, Ungermann-Bass Inc, Nokia Data Systems A/S and Unisys Corp.
