The UK Futurebus Manufacturers and Users Group in Fleet, Hampshire, says that a Futurebus+ Telecom profile is to be created for the telecommunications industry, and a desktop profile is being considered for personal computers. A Futurebus+ profile is an industry-specific subset of functions and mechanisms chosen to fit the needs of particular industries. For some time the telecommunications industry has been working on Combus, for dedicated Integrated Services Digital Network functions such as call diversions – a decision to make Combus compatible with Futurebus+ was taken in 1989. Other profiles are already being created for DEC, VMEbus and workstation manufacturers, and for the military. Indeed DEC last week opened its patented general purpose input-output protocol for Futurebus+ systems to all Futurebus+ developers. It is said to run equally well with VMS, Ultrix, MVS and SunOS. Futurebus+ is an IEEE project to create a set of standards for next generation computer backplane buses. Separately, a new report from the UK end of the big Netherlands-owned publishing group, Elsevier Advanced Technology, based in Oxford, reckons that the market for systems built around the Futurebus+ will be worth $500m by 1994, and it predicts that Futurebus+ will become the biggest selling bus standard by 1998. The report, A Market Assessment of Futurebus+, costs UKP895, or $1,460.
