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1990-05-10
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Gary Wolfe or Jennifer Jester
Corporate Relations Department
Banyan Systems Incorporated
508-898-1000
BANYAN ENDORSES MICROSOFT'S NETWORK DEVICE INTERFACE SPECIFICATION
(NDIS)
TO WIDEN COMPANY'S LAN CARD SUPPORT
WESTBORO, Mass., May 8, 1990 -- Banyan Systems today announced the
company's first VINES client software to support the Network Device
Interface Specification (NDIS), an emerging industry standard that
gives network users expanded options when selecting and using local
area network (LAN) cards. Banyan is the first network computing
vendor other than LAN Manager OEMs to endorse and support NDIS.
"Banyan believes in openness and in all forms of compatibility --
applications, APIs, operating systems, protocols, and hardware.
NDIS support is another demonstration of this commitment," said
James Allchin, Vice President and Chief Technical Officer. "The
result of adopting NDIS is increased flexibility and
configurability for VINES and lower networking costs for the user.
It also benefits LAN card vendors by giving them a convenient
alternative method of having their products supported by VINES
through an industry standard specification."
NDIS was defined by Microsoft and 3COM, and specifies a standard
device-level software interface for LAN cards. This standard
interface eliminates the need for network communication software to
incorporate knowledge about specific configuration details of the
chosen LAN card. VINES' new NDIS Software Interface interacts with
the vendor supplied NDIS driver, not directly with the LAN
hardware. This differs from native mode drivers which interact
directly with LAN card hardware. Separating network communications
software from the card driver translates into increased support of
more LAN cards.
Many LAN card vendors currently provide NDIS software drivers for
their cards; most other vendors plan to release NDIS drivers in the
near future. Banyan support of NDIS means that VINES customers can
now select and use a wider variety of LAN cards than otherwise
possible because they are free to utilize a combination of Banyan-
supplied native mode drivers and vendor-supplied NDIS drivers in
the same network. In addition, as existing LAN cards are improved
and as new LAN cards are introduced, the LAN card vendors need only
supply a suitable NDIS driver to ensure instant support by VINES.
Initially, Banyan's VINES NDIS Software Interface will support LAN
vendor's NDIS drivers for the Ethernet topology. To VINES users the
interface is perceived to be the same as a conventional VINES
native mode LAN driver. In operation, however, the interface
actually permits VINES DOS clients to communicate with a LAN
vendor-supplied NDIS driver, which in turn communicates with the
LAN card hardware.
"We are very pleased that Banyan has joined Microsoft in endorsing
NDIS as the industry standard for integrating network operating
systems and network adapter drivers, and that Banyan is today
shipping a VINES driver to support NDIS," said Mike Murray, General
Manager, Microsoft Network Business Unit. "This joint support will
have immediate payoffs for both Banyan and Microsoft customers as
well as for the entire community of LAN card manufacturers."
Banyan has tested its NDIS support against many third party NDIS
drivers, including those from Tiara, 3Com, and Apricot Computer in
order to assure compliance with the standard. Banyan plans to make
the VINES NDIS Software Interface available to supported VINES
users on a no-charge, individual request basis, beginning May 15.
A subsequent release of VINES will incorporate this driver.
###
About Banyan Systems Incorporated
Banyan Systems is the leader in corporate-wide PC networking. Banyan's premier product is VINESR, a
powerful, fully-integrated network computing environment based on industry and international standards.
VINES permits the convenient accessing, sharing, and managing of computer information and resources
in distributed systems ranging from localized PC clusters up to the largest multinational PC networks in the
world.
Operating on a growing variety of popular personal computers as well as on Banyan's own family of network
servers, VINES transparently internetworks PCs, minicomputers, mainframes, and other resources with local
and wide area networks. The resultant network is secure and convenient to administer, yet it provides a
single easy-to-understand user interface at each workstation. VINES users need no knowledge of network
topology. They perceive the entire network as a virtual extension of their own PCs, and simply access
needed resources via Banyan's StreetTalkTM, the world's first and most powerful global directory service.
Banyan Systems is headquartered at 120 Flanders Road, Westboro, MA 01581. (508) 898-1000.
Banyan and VINES are registered trademarks and StreetTalk is a trademark of Banyan Systems.