1s Uniplex V9 right for you?

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It is fairly well known that Centreline 2000 considered the V8.10 upgrade to be inadequate and was not recommended by us. Has our opinion changed with V9? Yes. We think that this upgrade offers substantial improvements, indeed if you never made the move up to V8.10 you really have got a lot of new benefits coming to you.

Key Benefits over V8.10 Full Year 2000 compliance Web Enabled Terminal Emulation Improved Mail and MIME interface Integrated Document Conversion Informix 5 Standard Engine

Key Benefits over V8.00/V7.00 Windows Style File Manager Embedded document styles Improved Print Preview Better printer support Use of Intermail on PC's

Starting with Personal Computers

This really is the key area, nearly every Uniplex site now has PC's in use. There have been a number of methods of integrating PC's into the Uniplex environment and making some sense of cross connections. Indeed we sell and have developed a number of them.

What's new is the direct support from Uniplex. By embedding the terminal emulation package you have instant PC/Unix emulation and remote working over the Internet. This really is a great strategic method for deploying terminal emulation.

We have some interesting ideas about how to make the most of this connection, and we'll be making announcements here shortly on this front.

Further, the InterMail client, (a.k.a. Centreline 2000's Office 2000 Mail), provides a means of integrating PC's with Uniplex mail. This gives you a fairly seamless integration of PC users and Unix users around mail. It just drops in directly using your existing Uniplex configuration (and will automatically support any Internet connection you have).

What you don't get is any means of transferring files or printing files, from Unix to your PC or NT servers. You still need to solve this by other means. There are several options here, and again we can advise you on which options make sense here. Our Omni-NFS and similar products will offer you that seamless, drag-n-drop file and print interface you probably will still need.

Mail and the Internet

Of course, the Internet is this years big thing - indeed if you are not on the Internet then you are already a "fuddy-duddy" in the world of business communications. Internet mail is rapidly becoming the replacement for the old fax system.

Although this is not well known Uniplex has been integrated with Internet mail right from its early days. Even now it offers Internet mail features not available in better selling products.

So, take an Internet mail ready system, add the MIME gateway to support the transfer of multiple file types, finish off with document conversion so you can view, print or edit any incoming file type and you have a very powerful, efficient and functional email strength.

Then, for all your PC users, connect them using Office 2000 Mail so they can use your industrial strength mail backbone for transferring PC files and you have a complete high-powered system.

And, if you've never tried to implement a similar PC or NT based corporate mail system, believe me this is a cost-effective, robust and reliable solution. These Uniplex systems have been handling up to 1,000's for years, you could not come close to this using an NT based solution.

If you missed V8.10

We weren't keen on V8.10, and we didn't make friends in certain quarters as a result of saying so. But, if you didn't make the move to V8.10 then you've got some other extra goodies coming too.

The new "windows-style" file manager, especially the faster V9 version, provides a good, document centered method of dealing with files and generally using Uniplex. Easy access to edit, print, copy and move functions work well. The integration with the optional document conversion is great for mixed environments.

The document format was extended in V8.10 to support embedded print styles, so no more screwy prints. These were supported by document templates, fairly under-used in the field, but a very good way of speeding up and standardising the creation of routine documents.

An improved print preview (again) also helps a lot in being able to get a better idea of your final print results before you commit another tree to the waste paper basket.

Year 2000 Compliance

There's really not much to say here, with earlier versions of Uniplex you could just about get over the Year 2000 if you were a Word Processing only user.

However, if you use Spreadsheet or Database functions you really must go to V9.00. While V8.10 cleared up the remainder of the spreadsheet issues, there were still some database problems relying on the new Informix 5 standard engine.

Informix 5 Standard Engine

Clearly this is not of interest to a lot of Uniplex users, but if you do use the database, then this is a great deal. Through Uniplex you gain access to the latest Informix standard engine cut.

This version is faster, has new data types and critically now is fully Year 2000 compliant - a mandatory item for nearly any database user.

Meanwhile, the ability to perform calculations in database forms is a welcome addition, this is a great boost and should avoid the need to go to horrible custom built screen builder forms for database editing in the future.

And, in this Internet age, don't forget that the Report Writer is absolutely brilliant at creating Internet ready web pages in HTML. If you need to integrate your database with the web, either as static pages or dynamic online pages then you could do a lot worse than base this around Uniplex database and report writer.

Conclusion

Every site needs to assess the benefits of an upgrade against the cost. However, we would recommend you review V9 features and benefits positively. It offers a range of new functions, and in particular extended support for connected PCs.

If you are Internet connected or about to be, then Uniplex will be a good starting point, both for Mail and for Web generation.

If Year 2000 is an issue then V9 is a must. And don't forget that with the launch of V9 all V7 versions will become unsupported by Uniplex. Indeed with the launch of V9.1 (slated for mid '98) even V8.00 will become unsupported.

Uniplex will never set the world alight, but this is a sensible and reasoned improvement on a long-standing, robust corporate solution. If you can avoid your users being hijacked by the glitter of PC Windows then you've still got life in Uniplex.