LAN Manager/X Question & Answer ------------------- 1. What is HP's commitment to LAN Manager? HP is continuing to make investments in providing LAN Manager based solutions to it's customers. HP supports the top PC NOS's in the industry and LAN Manager is one of these. HP's strategy is to partner with the industry leaders to provide the best solutions to our customers. For the HP9000, in May, 1992, HP began shipping the LM/X server which supports Microsoft LAN Manager 2.1 clients as well as allows file locking/sharing between DOS and Apple MAC clients. HP has partnered with Pacer Software to provide Apple MAC client connectivity to our LM/X server. Additionally, we have plans to provide LAN Manager 2.1a server capabilities by midyear 1993. Extensive performance benchmarking has been completed on the S8x7 systems and the results look great! A copy of the performance information can be obtained from the GSY Hotline under the subject "LMX8X7". Our HP3000 solution consists of LAN Manager Named Pipes for client server application development and Resource Sharing/XL for file and print sharing. We are continuing to support the current versions of Microsoft's clients to access our servers. For potential new customers, you should utilize the consultative approach to determine the solution that best meets your customers' needs. The marketplace did not respond as quickly as analysts/Microsoft would have liked, therefore LAN Manager is not the leading PC NOS, but is among the leaders in the industry. Microsoft is committed to LAN Manager and continues to invest in it. HP believes that LAN Manager is an integral part of our client/server offering and is therefore continuing to invest to new versions of LAN Manager. 2. When should customers buy LAN Manager vs Netware? HP's goal is to make as many system server sales as possible. With the offering of the top PC NOS's we want to allow the customer to choose. We have established the following key criteria: The application may dictate the NOS - if an application only runs on one network and that application is mandatory, then the network choice is made. The network is already installed and the user is happy - by offering the choice PC NOS, HP will work with the customer to add the new capability he/she is looking for to the existing network. If the installed network is MS-NET, then migration to LAN Manager is the obvious choice. There is no network currently installed - if the customer is undecided and there is no network constraints imposed by the application being considered and enterprise wide networking is thought to be an important capability, then a TCP/IP based network should be recommended. Today, LAN Manager is the only native TCP/IP implementation HP offers. Novell will be shipping NetWare with v3.11 (386) and has announced intentions to support it on Portable Netware in the future. At this time, LAN Manager is the better enterprise wide TCP/IP solution. If a system sale is not involved, then the customer should be sent to a Vectra dealer, that is, is the network is a PC only network. 3. What new features are available with the latest release of LM/X? The latest release of LAN Manager (internal name release C) includes support of LAN Manager 2.1 clients and file locking to allow MAC and DOS clients to share files. This release is shipping now for S/700/800 and June 1st for S/300/400. Product numbers are B1011C for 700/800, and B1003C for 300/400. The new server version is 1.3. (Please note, there was not a 1.2 version). 4. How do I order LM/X for my customer? Send a desk message to the Network Hotline with "LMXORD" as the subject. A reply will be sent to you with the ordering instructions for a new customer, as well as those wanting to upgrade older versions. 5. What is HP's relationship with Microsoft? HP did the initial implementation of LAN Manager on a UNIX platform for Microsoft. This version was based on Microsoft's LAN Manager 1.0 product for OS/2 systems. This version and a follow-on upgrade (version 1.1) were delivered to Microsoft for licensing to the rest of the industry. HP has an OEM relationship with Microsoft which means that HP licenses the core LAN Manager technology from Microsoft and completes the port to the HP-UX platform. This allows HP to minimize its investment in core LAN Manager technology and maximize investment in adding value to this core technology. At the same time HP and Microsoft co-developed the LM/X 1.0 and 1.1 versions, NCR separately developed and delivered their implementation of a LAN Manager for UNIX OEM kit. The fact that there were two versions of LAN Manager for UNIX was confusing, thus Microsoft chose to converge the two implementations. It was decided that the NCR platform would be used for convergence. NCR is currently the co-developer with Microsoft for LAN Manager for UNIX, while HP is an OEM reselling the LM/X product on HP systems. NCR is responsible for the development of future versions of LAN Manager for UNIX systems. These new versions will be based on Microsoft's LAN Manager for OS/2 requirements and additional specifications jointly defined by NCR and Microsoft. This arrangement ensures continued consistency and compatibility between LAN Manager for OS/2 and LAN Manager for UNIX Systems in terms of application programming interfaces (APIs), interoperability, features, and functions. Both companies license and promote LAN Manager for UNIX worldwide. HP continues to license the product from Microsoft. 6. When will HP have a LM/X 2.x product? HP will leap-frog the LM/X 2.0 product and go directly to LM/X 2.1a. Many of our customers are anxious for the new functionality in 2.1a. Since 2.1a is a superset of 2.0, this is what will be offered. Shipments of LM/X 2.1a are targeted for midyear, 1993. The porting effort required for 2.x is significant due to architectural differences between NCR and HP. LAN Manager for UNIX 2.x relies heavily on streams instead of Berkeley sockets used by HP in the development of LM/X 1.x. HP's best overall solution with respect to development and strategy is to use the streams environment. LM/X 2.1a will be offered on HP9000 RISC-based systems only. 7. Will NCR/AT&T always have a time-to-market advantage? NCR is the co-developer of the LAN Manager for UNIX product with Microsoft. As such, they are responsible for the development of future versions. Today, they are the only vendor shipping a 2.0 product. Contractually, NCR is obligated to wait a period of time between when Microsoft delivers the final code to all other OEMs and when NCR ships their product. None-the-less, they will always enjoy some time-to- market advantage. HP's intends to limit this as much as possible. HP's objective is to be among the leaders with LM/X offerings. The most aggressive schedules possible will be planned to support the latest in LM/X features. 8. What features are in the LAN Manager for UNIX 2.0 and 2.1 products from NCR and will these be the same for HP? The attached message contains information relating to the feature set of 2.0. HP will support those features which are not NCR/AT&T proprietary and what the HP-UX OS supports today. The 2.1a code is still being negotiated by NCR and Microsoft and as such, is not publicly available yet. Those features from the LAN Manager 2.1 for OS/2 product most asked for are included in the attached message.