Intergraph gets objective
Intergraph debuts a new version of its Network File System (NFS) software product today that offers Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding technology capabilities within a new architecture, optimized for Windows NT.
Using Intergraph's DiskAccess 3.0, NFS users can now establish OLE links in files on Unix or Windows-based systems.
The potential of NFS supporting OLE includes having objects embedded in NFS-based documents or keeping OLE objects stored on a shared server, for example.
Intergraph officials said the path-based architecture, jointly developed with Microsoft, is optimized for NFS clients on Windows NT systems. The announcement was made at the Windows NT Intranet Solutions '96 conference in San Francisco.
"If you're in a multivendor environment, about the only way to share files is NFS," said Dan Kusnetsky, an analyst with International Data Corporation, a Framingham, Massachusetts-based consultancy.
"Adding OLE allows you to do more sophisticated things on Windows NT servers. I think it's an interesting wrinkle, but OLE is not a common middleware structure in Unix or mainframe environments," noted Kusnetsky. Those environments are the common systems backbone for NFS clients in heterogenous environments.
The 32-bit Disk Access 3.0 for Windows NT replaces PC-NFS for Windows NT, Intergraph's previous product, which was a collaboration with Sun Microsystems. DiskAccess 3.0 will ship next month.