Digital's 'BASEstar' software is a "Manufacturing Integration" product, offering integration of application with industrial control devices to lower the cost and risk associated with manufacturing systems integration.

BASEstar is responsible for collecting and distributing information to the equipment at the shop floor such as Programming Logic Controllers (PLC), Factory Data Collection (FDC) devices and DNC. At present, there are around fifty "off-the-shelf" connection of PLC and FDC devices available under BASEstar. It also provides a set of easy-to-use tools for graphic visualisation (Like SL-MS and data views) of the production process and material flow. With BASEstar, the customer can expand his factory or add new application on top of BASEstar while the interfaces to the application and factory remain clear.

BASEstar software facilitates the integration of manufacturing applications with plant equipment, accelerates development of integrated manufacturing systems, and provides an architecture for consistent development of manufacturing applications. BASEstar software has features for manufacturing application integration, device connection, control of plant equipment, storage and management of device files and operator files through its library system.

• can be integrated with the ERP packages (SAP, TRITON, BPCS etc) and RDBMS applications
• client/server implementation with server on Open VMS/VAX and AlphaAXP or Digital-Unix/AlphaAXP an client on MS Windows
• application independencies
• reuse of solutions
• reduce complexity and increase integration from multiple suppliers

Mumbai(Bombay)-based Tata Honeywell has announced the 'Total Plant Solution System (TPS)' in India, the first industrial automation system designed to unify business and control information throughout a plant.

According to the company's press release, TPS is a technologically advanced system available for meeting the entire range of process manufacturers' needs and takes full advantage of the power of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The benefits of such a system include overall productivity, the ability to produce consistently high quality products as economically as possible and profitability.

Tata Honeywell also announced the availability of the Windows NT version of 'TotalPlant History', a high performance plant-wide historian that automatically collects and stores data from the new system and other plant automation and information and 'TotalPlant Desktop' which consists of software tools and enablers that make history data available for use on Windows NT stations anywhere in business enterprise.

Infosys Technologies Limited, the authorised distributor of Symantec Corporation's products in India, has announced the launch of Symantec's Internet Fastfind, Norton administrator Suite - Premier Edition and Expose 3.5

Internet FastFind is Symantec's first Internet specific product that is said to help users search and retrieve information on the Internet quickly and easily. The centerpiece of the product WebFind, a single interface feature that uses all popular search engines such as Yahoo, Alta Vista and Lycos to find and gather Web content. WebFind feature is said to eliminate the long and tedious process of searching each engine separately.

Norton Administrator Suite Premier Edition is said to maximise the network reliability and reduce the computing costs of large distributed networks. The product which is designed to be network, platform and protocol-independent is said to be an ideal tool for administering large, distributed networks.

Expose 3.5, an intelligent real-time server management software, provides network administrators a single solution for proactive management of servers in a mix of network operating systems and across dispersed geographic across dispersed geographic environments. The product monitors and manages servers from a single integrated console. In addition, Expose 3.5 is said to be Internet-enabled so as to allow administrators the ability to extend server and device support over the Internet or Intranets thereby reducing the need to install dedicated network lines to manage remote locations. Expose 3.5 when used with the Norton Administrator Suite can help ensure availability to all network resources - whether they are server or PC client- based.

Ashok Leyland Information Technology Ltd (ALIT), Bangalore, a software services company, has launched a major initiative to capture a share of the colossal market for the millennium bug fixing services.

ALIT has just launched an important product to consummate its capabilities for the millennium bug and product line it handles. ALIT will be selling product from Adpac, a company recently acquired by Platinum Technologies, an ALIT principal in the US. Adpac has streamlined solution addressing the millennium bug in the form of a product (software tool) - System Vision Year 2000. The Adpac takeover by Platinum has initiated ALIT into the Y2K services segment. To also arm itself and offer clients in terms of product line, ALIT has developed "SmartConvert/2000".

Most Y2K tools including System Vision 2000 are restricted only to processing legacy source codes to search for and mark occurrences of date fields in database and programs. Humans are entailed with the work of carrying out the actual conversion. SmartConvert/2000, in a complementary capacity, working in tandem with Y2K tools like System Vision 2000, automates the conversion process. System Vision 2000 first examines each line of source code, data and procedural structures and locates all Y2K related items like definitions, data transfers, calculations and comparisons. The tools uses parsing technology to extract a variety of factors used to compute the program maintenance difficulty rating. It then provides a complete inventory of all date occurrences. It offers an automated pre-change analysis and an upfront analysis for the code change process and steps from one location change to the next.

System Vision 2000 is installed on the clients hardware and runs in all MVS environments supporting Cobol, PL/1 and assembler languages and SQL, DB2, IMS, IDMS, CICS, IDD and other data sources. The tool also produces impact reports detailing cost and time estimates based on customised assumptions and includes edit macros.

Peutronics, developer of one of India's largest selling financial accounting package- Tally - is to market the latest version of this sole product in the international market. As a prelude, the company is setting up a 100% subsidiary in London which is expected to fully operational soon. Thereafter, Peutronics plans to start a regional office for Asia Pacific in Singapore and fan out with a string of offices in other countries in a phased manner.

Hitherto, Tally found its way to foreign shores only in a sporadic manner owing to efforts purely of its dealers and distributors in India. The company is already scouting for distributors and dealers to tackle Europe as well as Africa, with the London office acting as base for both continents. Though Tally has absolutely no brand equity in the international market, it is packed with some unique features that gives it an edge over competing brands like Pegasus, a leading FA package that aims at transnational customers. Concurrent handling of multiple currencies is one such features incroporated in the latest version. The account can be written or read in any currency at the same time. And the number of currencies it can handle is virtually unlimited.