Datapoint Corp is pitching for a bigger slice of the networking market with the announcement of its entry into the MS-DOS micro arena through its new Datalan system. Throwing down the gauntlet to players such as Novell Inc, Datapoint claims that its industry-standard system – which runs on ARCnet, Ethernet and Token Ring topologies and is compatible with MS-DOS and IBM’s PC Lan Programme, with future OS/2 compliance promised – delivers performance previously only possible on a proprietary system. Only 5% of the total 25m micros standing on US desktops are currently networked but this percentage is forecast to rise to between 20% and 25% and Datapoint expects Datalan to make a significant contribution to its $312m business. Datalan is a range of software modules running on MS-DOS machines and adhering to Microsoft standards: NetBIOS for peer-to-peer messaging, SMP for peer-to-server communications and MS-DOS and OS/2 for file and data access. Datapoint says it will integrate its proprietary RMS operating system, developed specifically fornetworking, to run on the server by the end of the year. RMS integration is intended to boost performance levels on the server demanded by corporate networks to enable access to Oracle databases, for example. Entry level Datalan networking starts on a 80386-based Datapoint 7700 or PS/2 server but can use 7800 and 7850 machines at the top end with each server supporting up to 150 users. Datapoint will ship the system from the middle of next month and is setting up a dealer network in the UK to supplement its direct sales effort. A Datalan 4 starter pack containing three Arcnet interface cards and Datalan NetBIOS to support four users costs UKP1,800 while a 50 user system should work out at UKP550 per user.
