Isocor Europe Ltd plans to to use the forthcoming CeBit show as the launchpad for an array of industry firsts. They are said to be the only implementation of the 1988 X400 standard running under AIX on IBM Corp’s RS/6000. But, if you haven’t heard of Isocor that’s because it is a start-up company, albeit with an impressive pedigree. The core team and co-founders of Retix Inc are all Isocor board members, and according to Ian Milne, managing director of Dublin, Eire-based Isocor Europe, the new company is aiming at the application-specific direction from which Retix was sidetracked. The European launch at CeBit is in advance of the US launch date, despite the company’s American roots. At the heart of the new product line is the Isoplex 800, an X400 1988 transport engine for the RS/6000 which uses Isomail 800, a family of native 1988 X400 local and remote user agents for advanced messaging, available for both character and Windows-based local area networks. The Isoplex 800 can be used with public X25 networks, as well as other X400 servers over IEEE 802.3 Ethernet networks, or over TCP/IP networks. The Isoplex 400 is a similar product for use with 80286 and 80386-based local area networks. Features on Isomail 800 include private and shared address books for quick entry of nicknames, distribution lists that can be nested and management facilities for sorting, retrieval and filing of messages. Also new are the Isotrade 800 and 400, a family of Electronic Data Interchange access units based on X435 and Isosec 800, a security module which provides entity authentication, data integrity and non-repudiation for both Edifact documents and other 1988 X400 messages. The Isogate 400 is a gateway based on Novell Inc and Action Technologies Inc Message Handling Service, and can be used with either the Isoplex 400 or the Retix OpenServer to provide X400 links. The products will be released in the second quarter of 1992, with European prices ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 for the Isoplex 800 on the RS/6000, $50 to $150 per native user for Isomail 800, and between $2,000 and $10,000 for Isosec. Other prices have yet to be decided. Isocor Corp, headquartered in the Los Angeles suburbs, was established in August 1991 by Andy De Mari, a co-founder of Retix Inc, and the two companies are said still to have a close working relationship. Milne is looking for partners and distributors, but they must have proven expertise since the products don’t fall in the sell-and-forget-it category.
