Volkswagen AG is developing an object-oriented information system, Euro-Elan, to supply general business and export data to its dealers in Europe. Computerwoche says the system should be running by 1996, catering for 9,500 dealers and 110,000 customers within five years. Volkswagen and its exporters set up a separate company, Euro Marketing Systems GmbH, in 1991 to realise this aim, and the firm currently has 55 staff working for it. An office in Salzburg has worked on the project from the design to the prototyping stage; 14 staff at headquarters in Braunschweig are putting the final touches to it; and an office in Leusden, the Netherlands, will implement it, provide support and training. Euro-Elan is written in C++, is supported by a Versant Object Technology Inc database. It runs under six different Unix environments.
