Reports leaked in the US of a new low-end Vines network operating system were confirmed this week, with the news that Banyan Systems Inc, Westborough, will officially announce two products called Vines 10 and Vines 20 in the first quarter of next year. The new packages are currently on pilot trial with both US and European distributors, and if all goes well may replace Banyan’s current low-end offering, Vines Team, says European marketing manager Dianne Canham. Vines Team has never been particularly popular; among its shortcomings, users cite both price and its inability to handle local network linking – a Vines Team network cannot link with other Vines nets, giving the marketing people at Banyan a rod for their own backs since they cannot sell it to one department of a large firm and then add to it. We have been criticised for not having a scalable product and we want to be competitive for someone that wants to install a local network initially in a department, before growing to other parts of the organisation, Ms Canham acknowledged. Vines 10 and 20 will attempt to address that problem by lifting the restriction on local network linking and, by the sound of it, being substantially cheaper than Vines Team. She also said the developments are part of a move to provide competitive cost-per-user in the the 10-to-20 user market, but vehemently denied that the company was attempting to compete with the likes of Novell Inc’s NetWare. No prices are available ahead of the official announcement, but when asked why the company did not simply add local network linking to Teams, she cited pricing as a problem – you cannot add something to a package and then drop its price after all. Some US reports say that the new products will lack some of Vines’ familiar network services, but Ms Canham said that the StreetTalk naming service will be included and Vines 10/20 should also be able to support most of the wide area communications options. She stressed, however, that Banyan may change its plans between now and the launch.
