Sun Microsystems Inc’s TOPS Division has begun shipping InBox Personal Connection to provide messaging between Apple Computer Inc Macintosh and MS-DOS computers. The company claims InBox, first released by Symantec Corp, provides heterogeneous electronic mail at Ethernet speeds; it says the mail package features improved performance and flexibility in the configuration of installations. InBox Personal Connection gives the choice of EtherTalk or AppleTalk messaging between Macs and MS-DOS computers; it can be configured as a memory-resident application, providing users with the ability to send and receive messages when working with other applications, or be configured as an application. It also offers client capabilities to MS-DOS machines linked to InBox Macintosh message centres. To connect MS-DOS machines to AppleTalk networks, an Ethernet or AppleTalk network interface card is required. The product supports 3Com’s EtherLink II or Etherlink/MC cards and Western Digital’s EtherCard Plus family. TOPS has also halved the price of InBox to $100 from $200 previously.
