Kirkland, Washington connectivity specialist Wall Data Inc claims to be giving IBM Corp AS/400 system managers greater flexibility and choice for future system development, with the latest release of its Rumba personal computer to host software. The company, which in 1994 decided on a major re-write of its then 16-bit software to 32-bit, at a cost of some $40m, staked its whole future on the internet and migration to 32-bit software such as Windows 95 and NT, and must now be hoping that more of the traditionally conservative AS/400 community will decide to migrate to 32-bit software. Rumba version 5.2 claims to address specific customer requirements, including complete native support for TCP/IP protocols for all applications, enabling users to migrate from proprietary IBM SNA network protocols, and integrate with intranet and internet applications. Itself a fully 32-bit product, Rumba now supports IBM’s 16-bit client access programming interfaces, which means that legacy AS/400 applications with 16-bit client interfaces will run under Windows 95 or NT without any programming changes. Wall Data says this is particularly important for managers wishing to upgrade to Windows 95 or NT, because many have mission critical applications which previously would have had to be re-written. Other features include direct TCP/IP access to ODBC open database connectivity drivers, which the company says has made access to AS/400 databases over the network 30 times faster, and TCP/IP support for AS/400 shared folders. The new Rumba Internet Companion enables single click access to the AS/400 from a web browser, currently Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, with Netscape support to follow. It offers a simple shrink-wrapped access to three commonly used internet functions, web browsing, FTP file transfer and News Group applications. Internet Companion can be installed separately on a notebook or desktop computer as a thin client application. As well as existing users, the company is hoping to cash in on the 30% of AS/400 customers which IBM says are new customers, as well as all those upgrading their current AS/400 configurations.
