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Press/Digital & VISystems Partner On CICS/COBOL To UNIX Migration

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Digital Press and Analysts News

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Apr 7, 1994, 8:01:26 PM4/7/94
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Digital Equipment Corporation
Maynard, Massachusetts 01754-2571
Editorial contact:

Jennifer Janson
Digital Equipment Corporation
(508) 264-5207

Frank Garner
VISystems Inc.
(214) 960-8649


DIGITAL EQUIPMENT AND VISYSTEMS PARTNER
TO OFFER CUSTOMERS MAINFRAME TO UNIX
CICS/COBOL MIGRATION CAPABILITIES


MAYNARD, Mass. -- April 7, 1994 -- Digital Equipment Corporation
and VISystems Inc. jointly announced today a partnership agreement
that enables Digital to resell VIS/TP, VISystems' transaction
processing system on the UNIX platform. The Digital/VISystems
partnership offers customers the ability to migrate their mainframe
CICS transaction processing to Digital's OSF/1 (UNIX) open systems
environment while realizing cost savings that often range from 50
to 80 percent or more.

Under terms of the agreement, Digital will resell VIS/TP in the
United States and Canada. Digital and VISystems also will jointly
market VIS/TP solutions worldwide to customers downsizing
applications from the mainframe and moving to open client/server
solutions, as well as those customers developing new applications
for CICS. VIS/TP has been ported to Digital's Alpha AXP high
performance 64-bit RISC-based computing environment.

CUSTOMER BENEFITS

"VIS/TP, running CICS applications on a Digital OSF/1-Alpha
machine, gives us the same or better transaction processing perform-
ance than the mainframe we previously used," said David Leighton,
vice president of MIS, for Limited Distribution Servers (LDS). "It
is easier to implement and administer than mainframe CICS and
provides us with operational savings in excess of 50 percent," he
said.

Further, "the conversion from mainframe CICS to VIS/TP was
completed with minimum impact on the end-users," LDS' Leighton
continued. LDS provides for the distribution of products sold by
4,700 stores of The Limited. The Limited boasted revenues of $7.5
billion last year. Using the VIS/TP monitor, The Limited handled 8.5
million packages during the past holiday season, a 30 percent
quantity more than last year.

VIS/TP is an Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) monitor for
UNIX platforms that is compatible with CICS source code and allows
users to transfer and execute existing mainframe applications in
Digital's advanced, Alpha AXP open computing environment.

By enabling users to run CICS applications on both IBM and
Digital platforms with a single set of source code, VIS/TP provides
the freedom to reengineer business practices without disrupting
ongoing operations. VIS/TP is based on the native IBM mainframe CICS
API and is a full-function transaction processing system - not a
CICS emulator - that supports both COBOL and C language development.
VIS/TP is source-code-compatible with current CICS applications
ensuring the protection of the customer's existing investments in
programmer skills, training, and all-round user proficiency.

"We are particularly excited with our VISystems partnership
because it permits us to tap an immense market opportunity where
Digital is ideally positioned with our powerful, open Alpha AXP
OSF/1 environment," said John O'Keefe, vice president, UNIX Systems
Group, at Digital Equipment Corporation. "CICS is the de facto
standard for online transaction processing," he said.

According to a recent Gartner Group study, nearly 70 percent of
the current OLTP market runs on a CICS platform. By 1995, the
Gartner Group projects that CICS will hold at least 37 percent of
the emerging open system OLTP market. "With 300,000 trained
programmers, more than 1,000 ISVs and 55,000 installed licenses,
CICS represents a hugh market opportunity for Digital," Digital's
O'Keefe said.

Digital's relationship with VISystems enables VISystems to meet
customer needs. "The availability of VIS/TP on Digital's 21st
century 64-bit computing provides a uniquely powerful platform for
customers as they migrate their mainframe CICS to open systems
implementations," said Elhamy Kamel, president of VISystems Inc.

"Because VIS/TP is a full transaction processing system with
optimized code," Kamel continued, "mainframe CICS applications run
at the same speed, but at a small fraction of mainframe costs. Our
relationship with Digital will vastly expand our ability to meet
customers' requirements to reduce mainframe costs while retaining
current investments in applications and user training," he added.

COMPANY BACKGROUNDS

VISystems Inc. is a Dallas-based software and services company
dedicated to providing innovative solutions to today's computing
problems. VISystems develops, enhances, maintains and markets the
VIS/TP Transaction Processing System.

Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open
client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated
worldwide information systems. Digital's scalable Alpha AXP
platforms, storage, networking, software and services, together
with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help
organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.
####

Note to Editors: Digital, DEC, the Digital logo and Alpha AXP are
trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation.

VIS/TP is a trademark of VISystems Inc.

OSF/1 is a registered trademark of the Open
Software Foundation.

UNIX is a registered trademark of Unix System
Laboratories, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of
Novell, Inc.

IBM and CICS are registered trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation.

CORP/94/440
============================================================================
Electronic Editorial Contact: jans...@msbcs.enet.dec.com
============================================================================
Digital Press and Analysts News is sent as a courtesy to members of the
press, analyst and consulting community. For subscription information
please contact:
Russ Jones
Digital Equipment Corporation
Voice: 415-853-6566 FAX: 415-853-6537 Internet: pr-...@pa.dec.com
All Digital press releases, fact sheets and backgrounders are archived on
ftp.digital.com in the /pub/Digital/info/pr-news directory.
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