IBM Announces General Availability Of AIX/370

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Aug. 16, 1989 -- PRNewswire -- IBM announced today that its UNIX(R)-based Advanced Interactive Executive/370(TM) operating system for customers of the company's most powerful processors will be available in the first quarter of 1990.

This means that IBM will have fulfilled its pledge -- in two years -- to provide customers with advanced, consistent open software function across a full range of AIX products based upon industry standards. The family of AIX products -- called the AIX family definition -- was announced in March 1988. It includes AIX PS/2, AIX/RT and AIX/370.

"IBM is offering customers the broadest range of products in the UNIX industry," said George H. Conrades, IBM senior vice president and general manager-U.S. marketing and services. "We are committed to industry standards and to providing the open systems solutions requested by our customers in this rapidly growing area of the computer industry."

AIX/370 is a multi-user, multi-tasking virtual memory operating system. It provides an environment with large files and high-end computer capability that satisfies customers' large systems requirements in the open software environment.

AIX/370 is currently installed in 13 customer test sites, and will be installed in a number of others over the next several months under a limited availability program.

IBM also announced that Advanced Interactive Executive/370 Network File System (NFS)(TM) will be available in the first quarter of 1990. AIX/370 NFS is a separate licensed program that provides support for the NFS 3.2 protocols developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc., and enables AIX/370 to work with multiple vendors' equipment attached via an Ethernet(TM) or IBM Token-Ring LAN. With AIX/370 NFS, customers and application programmers can access files stored on other systems running MVS, VM, AIX, or other vendor open systems software.

In addition, IBM said that with general availability, AIX/370 will be compliant with the IEEE 1003.1 standard for POSIX(TM) (Portable Operating System for Computer Environments), which defines the operating system interfaces used by application programs. Programs that adhere to the standard will run on all POSIX-compliant systems, giving customers a much broader selection of applications to choose from.

IBM previously announced it will offer X/Open(R) compliant AIX operating systems for customers of its System/370, Personal System/2 and future workstation products in the third quarter of 1990.

Advanced Interactive Executive/370 (AIX/370), AIX PS/2, AIX/RT, and Advanced Interactive Executive/370 Network File System (NFS) are trademarks of the IBM Corporation.

UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T.

Network File System (NFS) is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Ethernet is a trademark of XEROX Corporation.

POSIX is a trademark of the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

X/Open is a registered trademark of the X/Open Group Members.

CONTACT: G.R. "Rusty" Carpenter of IBM, 203-352-7610/ 11:52 EDT