TECHNOLOGY : IBM Programs Acknowledge Big Role of PC

International Business Machines Corp., in a major move to make it easier for office workers to use its entire lineup of computers, on Tuesday introduced a new series of software that will provide a single set of operating instructions for its most popular models.

Although the announcement had been expected for months, several analysts called it an important development because it represents IBM’s strongest-ever acknowledgement of the broad role it expects personal computers to play in the office of the future.

The new software programs, called OfficeVision and developed in concert with 14 software publishing houses, will link four types of IBM computers--a personal computer, a minicomputer and two mainframes--through a single set of operating instructions. Currently, each of the models has its own set of instructions, and communications between the models has been slow and awkward.

Marketing Breakthrough

“It will make using corporate systems as easy as video games,” said Doug Kahn, president of Interactive Images, one of the firms that helped design the software.

While analysts generally praised the software technology, they said it represented more of a marketing breakthrough for IBM because it underscores and supports the company’s intention to sell its entire lineup of computers as components of a single package.

“The individual products are not leap-frogging what’s out there already from other companies. Some of the same capabilities are already available from other computer makers,” said Stephen Cohen, an analyst with SoundView, a Stamford, Conn., technology investment and research firm. “But this is IBM’s longterm, strategic vision for its office automation equipment.”

New Status

Other analysts noted that by providing software that ties its personal computers to its larger, more powerful machines, IBM has given the PC an official place in its vision of the office of the 1990s--a status that Stewart Alsop, publisher of a personal computing newsletter, claims that the company had never quite done before. According to Alsop, IBM previously considered the PC an anomaly, a popular machine but not one that performed critical computer work for big businesses.

“Just look, IBM has started calling them workstations, not PCs,” observed Jay Stevens, a technology analyst at Dean Witter Reynolds. “Little words mean a lot. Workstations mean they’re considered part of a network, part of the whole business enterprise. Personal computers mean they’re considered single-user machines disconnected from the overall business systems.”

The new software, explained George Conrades, IBM senior vice president, a personal computer user could pull away information stored on a corporate mainframe or mid-sized computer the same way he would gather material stored in his own machine.

“The applications will work in a similar manner and present information to users with a common look,” Conrades said.

Rival computer makers such as Digital Equipment Corp. already offer similar systems, and SoundView’s Cohen called the IBM effort an attempt to fight back and “play catch-up.” According to Dataquest Inc., a San Jose market research firm, DEC has more than 50% of the office computer integration market.

Updating Two Systems

IBM officials said the initial installments of the new software would be available next month, with eight to 10 products released within the next 12 months. But analysts said they did not expect all the new IBM software to be ready until 1992.

IBM also said it is updating two of its personal computer operating systems: its OS/2 Standard Edition, scheduled to be available in December for $340, and its OS/2 Extended Edition Version 1.2, to be available in November for $830. Kahn, the software publisher, said the new versions should boost sales of IBM’s newest PCs by making it easier for software writers to develop new programs for the systems.

Until now, he said, “It’s been like driving a Porsche in second gear.”