jnelson@tle.enet.dec.com (11/07/90)
The following is lifted from "VNS," an electronic newspaper that is
edited and published daily within Digital Equipment Corporation. VNS
is not an official Digital publication, and is totally supported by
volunteers. Reproduced with permission.
Jeff E. Nelson | Digital Equipment Corporation | jnelson@tle.enet.dec.com
Affiliation given for identification purposes only.
<><><><><><><><> T h e V O G O N N e w s S e r v i c e <><><><><><><><>
Edition : 2189 Tuesday 6-Nov-1990 Circulation : 8446
VNS COMPUTER NEWS: [Tracy Talcott, VNS Computer Desk]
================== [Nashua, NH, USA ]
IBM, Northern Telecom, Nynex - Announcement today on data services
breakthrough
{The Wall Street Journal, 5-Nov-90, p. B1}
The companies plan to announce today a technological breakthrough in
public communications that will make widely available advanced voice
and data services previously accessible only to big corporations on
private networks costing millions of dollars. The new service would
link a back office IBM computer owned by a business or organization
such as a school to a telephone company's central office switch. This
way, data containing a customer's name and phone number could be used
to automatically fetch a file on the customer from the office computer
as a phone call is being made. The computer would then deliver the
information to, say, a clerk or attorney's computer terminal at the
same time the call is answered.
Until now, only large corporations like American Express and American
Airlines could get this kind of service by installing sophisticated
private network equipment. AT&T has yet to announce a similar product.
Moreover, Northern plans to announce next week a hardware and software
automatic call distribution system, which Northern has dubbed the
Meridian Server, that can be installed on any central office switch,
including AT&T's, to deliver the same service. The product comes after
two years of development work between IBM and Northern, one of the
world's largest suppliers of computerized phone exchanges and AT&T's
chief rival in the U.S. equipment market. Northern wouldn't comment
on the announcement or the alliance. But one Northern insider said:
"This will be the first of several products. We'd love to plan more
products in the future with IBM." Under the current system, IBM uses
AS/400 minicomputers and its CallPath software that has been
fine-tuned to work with big-company switches to provide a public
network service.
Nynex plans to announce that Syracuse University will be the test site
for the new service in the summer of 1991. IBM is said to be readying
all of its computer lines, including personal computers, for the same
voice and data capability. But a little company in Austin, Texas, has
already designed an inexpensive software and hardware system that lets
a personal computer perform simultaneous voice and data functions, by
using Caller I.D. information delivered by the phone company's
switch. Rochelle Communications Inc. plans to unveil the $249 product
line later this month at the Comdex computer show. The system lets a
PC call up a customer record as a call is received. The system also
keeps a log of all calls and can store up to 65,000 files on
customers. "Our system is geared to the home market and small
businesses while IBM's and Northern's products will be aimed at
medium-sized businesses," said Gilbert Amine, Rochelle's president.
"This is going to be a very hot market."
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Permission to copy material from this VNS is granted (per DIGITAL PP&P)
provided that the message header for the issue and credit lines for the
VNS correspondent and original source are retained in the copy.
<><><><><><><> VNS Edition : 2189 Tuesday 6-Nov-1990 <><><><><><><><>