International Network Services Ltd is adding electronic data interchange to the growing list of communications methods that the X400 message transport protocol looks set to carry in the future. An experimental X400 EDI service will be available by the end of the year. A gateway to International’s EDI services such as Tradanet, will enable data in the Edifact, Tradacoms and Edifact standards to be exchanged via X400. International is also monitoring the stability of PEDI, an X400 procedure being developed to support X400. As well as additions to its Tradanet service in the banking and shipping fields, International has announced a Corporate Gateway service to provide a single electronic gateway to handle all communications between a company’s host applications and external services such as those of International or those of another third party EDI service provider. John Jenkins, marketing manager at Inter-national says the Gateway is part of the company’s long term Unix strategy. Targets for the Gateway include large IBM installations running the MVS operating system, which will be available by the end of 1991.
