Alpha Microsystems UK and Sound Techniques Ltd have won a UKP1.9m contract to supply nine Alpha Microsystems processors and Sound Techniques’ Equis software to 18 Inner London magistrates courts. In a three and a half year process, over 800 terminals at courts and police stations will be connected to eight AM3000 processors and one AM2000. These will replace the paperwork involved in running the courts and reduce the amount of time a court transaction takes. Sound Techniques beat Unisys and ICL to supply its Equis program, which runs only on Alpha Microsystems machines under Amos, and was chosen by the Inner London Magistrates Courts as the most cost effective. It will handle every aspect of administration within the courts. Alpha Microsystems is planning immediate implementation, the first system to be installed in Bush House. Successive installations will take place every four months. Each system is intended to work autonomously, although it will be connected to all the others. These will in turn be linked to some 30 police stations via the police network MetNet. Alpha Microsystems claims the benefits of the new system will be felt almost immediately, especially by those who appear in court, since information concerning dates of court appearances, procedures and the like will be available sooner. The company also took the opportunity to discuss its long term plans, in particular, its commitment to Open Systems Interconnection, and its growing interest in Unix. Alpha Microsystems now support Unix under its own proprietary Amos operating system, and says it is now working on minimising the differences between Amos and Unix. Over the next two or three years it claims that Amos will provide almost complete compatibility with Unix, although the company hopes it will run four times faster.
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