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                                                        The Florida SunFlash
   
            SUN GAINS MOMENTUM IN LIBRARY AUTOMATION

SunFLASH Vol 31 #2					           July 1991 
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --July 1, 1991-- As a part of its rapid expansion
into the library automation market, Sun Microsystems announced this
week that four leading software vendors have agreed to port their
library automation software packages to Sun's SPARC(R)-based
workstations and servers. The vendors include CLSI, Marquis (a Dynix
company), Sirsi and VTLS. Products will be available by the end of
1991.  Together, the four third-party software vendors claim an
installed base of more than 38 percent of the library market worldwide,
thus giving Sun access to potential new customers moving to UNIX(R).

The move to Sun, the industry's leading manufacturer of UNIX systems,
demonstrates the increasing acceptance of UNIX both in the public and
private segments of the library market. Easy-to-use graphical
interfaces like OPEN LOOK(R), offered by Sun, and ever-decreasing
prices for powerful workstations are helping move these networked
systems into markets previously dominated by minicomputers and networks
of PCs.

"Sun's goal is to provide library access beyond the physical library,"
said Van Jepson, director of industry and education marketing at Sun
Microsystems.  "Now the 60,000 academic users of Sun equipment will not
only be able to view the card catalogue from their workstation, they
will also be able to access full-text and images which are linked to
the catalogue."

The typical user device for library automation software (for
cataloging, circulation, serials control, acquisitions and other tasks)
has been a dumb terminal connected to one of the larger systems.  This
model of computing is changing as more vendors develop their software
to take advantage of the client-server capabilities offered by the UNIX
platform. With Sun's client-server model, the computing power is
distributed throughout the network so that the user has quicker access
to information at the desktop.

PR contact 
Cathleen Beall Garfield (415) 336-6536

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