Banyan gives TCP/IP wares a face-lift

Westborough, Mass.

Banyan Systems, Inc. last week announced that it will begin offering a new TCP/IP stack and application suite designed to make it easier for the company's customers to run TCP/IP across their VINES and ENS networks.

Banyan next month will release a client-based TCP/IP stack and application suite from Ipswitch, Inc., a Wakefield, Mass., company that replaces FTP Software, Inc. as Banyan's primary TCP/IP partner. Banyan also will launch a set of TCP/IP applications, including electronic mail, from Ipswitch.

The partnership between Banyan and Ipswitch follows the end of an eight-year relationship between Banyan and FTP Software under which FTP Software has supplied TCP/IP stacks and applications for Banyan customers. The firms have parted ways because FTP Software began increasing its focus on selling products directly to users, rather than acting as an OEM, Banyan officials said.

The Banyan Enterprise Client for TCP/IP is a protocol stack for Windows and DOS personal computers that will let users connect clients directly to servers, including those on the Internet, over TCP/IP. It also will let the clients connect to a Banyan VINES or Enterprise Network Services server running Banyan's Server-to-Server TCP/IP, an add-on product that lets Banyan servers talk to one another using TCP/IP instead of Banyan's proprietary VINES IP network protocol.

The new product will let users run a single TCP/IP stack on all their servers, rather than running both VINES IP and TCP/IP.

The stack does not cut Banyan clients loose from Banyan servers, however. Clients have to connect to a VINES server running the VINES Server-to-Server TCP/IP Option to use the client-based IP stack, said Ken Volpe, product manager for the Banyan TCP/IP products. Banyan plans to make the stack available on ENS servers, as well, but Volpe declined to say when.

The Banyan Enterprise Client for TCP/IP costs $495 individually and comes bundled with the VINES Server-to-Server TCP/IP Option for $1,995. It is free to customers of Banyan's VIP extended support plan.

Banyan will complement the protocol stack with a new set of applications, dubbed the TCP/IP Applications Suite for Windows, DOS and OS/2. The suite features E-mail, a NFS Client, NFS Server, telnet support, TN3270 emulation and IP routing at the client. It also supports the Point-to-Point Protocol, Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) and Simple Network Management Protocol, as well as the IBanyan and EBanyan protocols.

The suite, available now, costs $4,995 for a 50-user license or $2,795 for a 20-user license. Upgrades from FTP Software's PC/TCP EBanyan/IBanyan product cost $1,495 for 50 users. Banyan VIP customers can get a 50-user license for $795.

Banyan: (800) 222-6926.