Unisys Corporation has announced that its $10 million contract with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (MDOR) to provide Year 2000 Services has moved into the third phase. Unisys began work in November 1996 and has completed the assessment and planning phases; the third phase, renovating software code, is now underway. The entire project is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 1999. Unisys is providing consulting, project management, and implementation services to assist MDOR in making systems ready for the Year 2000 date change. Over 6.2 million lines of code will be renovated on software programs that run on hardware from Unisys and Digital Equipment Corporation. Currently, Unisys is helping more than 220 clients manage Year 2000 date change projects. "It is critical that state and local governments address the Year 2000 problem immediately," said Mary Kurkjian, vice president and Year 2000 practice director, for Unisys Public Sector. "Unisys approach is to educate and work with government agencies to help them solve the date glitch now - before they run out of time, and service to the citizen suffers." Unisys Virtual Integrator Suite (VIS) Enables New Winnipeg Freight Hub to be on Leading Edge of International Distribution and Logistics Services Unisys Corporation has announced that Winnport Logistics Limited, a Canadian transportation consortium, has selected Unisys Virtual Integrator Suite (VIS), the industry-recognized solution, to provide reliable freight services to its customers at lower cost. The contract value is $5 million over 10 years. Unisys VIS helps the traditional air freight industry control the flow of goods from shipper to consignee while simultaneously reducing delivery costs. VIS enables airlines and freight forwarders to emulate the closed loop systems currently in use by major integrated operators. A closed loop system is a set of standardized processes, cycle performance measurements, and controls supported by existing technological capabilities, such as bar coding and `smart scanning`, to monitor and manage the movement of every piece in a shipment. HP to Provide Unisys with PC and Entry-level Server Products Hewlett-Packard Company and Unisys Corporation has announced that they have finalised a contract that enables Unisys to resell and support a comprehensive range of HP desktop PCs, notebook PCs and low-end Intel-based servers on a worldwide basis. In March 1998, Unisys announced that it had reached an agreement in principle to source these products from HP. "This agreement with HP enables Unisys to continue offering a full range of Intel-based products from notebooks to high-performance enterprise-class servers to our clients," said George Gazerwitz, president of Unisys Computer Systems Group. "For HP-sourced commodity products, this includes leading-edge technology; award-winning, high-quality products; and a built-to-order process that our clients have come to rely on. We decided to focus our expertise and development skills at the enterprise level, where our clients rely on us to meet their most demanding business-critical IT requirements." Unisys Cargo Users Group Votes to Implement All Standards Recommended by Cargo 2000 Unisys Corporation has announced that members of the Unisys Cargo Users Group (UCUG) have voted to comply with all Cargo 2000 standards as they are established to strengthen the ability of the traditional air freight industry to deliver competitive services worldwide. The vote came in a two-day meeting in Berlin prior to the 25th Unisys Airline Users Association (UAUA) conference. Cargo 2000 is a special IATA interest group formed by leading airlines and freight forwarders to improve the traditional air freight industry through the implementation of agreed business processes and automation standards. "We are certain that the recommendations of Cargo 2000 will go a long way toward improving and strengthening our industry," said Shawn McWhorter, general manager of revenue management, cargo, for Delta Air Lines and incoming chairman of UCUG. "The members of UCUG will make those recommendations a top priority and will begin to implement standards immediately when they are announced." McWhorter added that airlines will be at a competitive disadvantage in delivery of services if they take a "wait and see attitude" and delay implementing Cargo 2000-recommended standards. Unisys Continues Its Enterprise NT Initiative, Announces Support for BEA M3 Object Transaction Middleware System As part of its strategy for bringing enterprise-class computing attributes to the Windows NT operating environment, Unisys Corporation has announced its support of BEA M3 middleware system from worldwide mission-critical middleware provider BEA Systems, Inc. BEA M3 is part of Unisys approach to integrate, `Best of Breed` components from leading technology alliance partners. "Unisys is a strong player in the OLTP arena and is aggressively investing in repository-centric, component-based development and runtime environments. With our combined depth and breath of experience for mission-critical runtime environments and component-based development environments, Unisys and BEA have the longevity and synergistic technology for providing the enterprise with the most comprehensive component-based middleware solutions," said Fred Ruessli, vice president marketing, Unisys Computer Systems. Unisys newly announced CMP (cellular multiprocessing) architecture and the company`s line of Aquanta enterprise servers will both benefit from the increased performance and component-based capabilities of BEA M3. In May, 1998, Unisys announced Cellular Multiprocessing (CMP), a server architecture based on future Intel Pentium II Xeon and Merced microprocessors. As the foundation for the next generation of open, enterprise-class computing, CMP is the first Intel-based server technology with partitioning capabilities, providing both the scalability advantages of large symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) servers and the high availability of clustering systems. The partitionable, `shared everything` design enables enterprise customers to run multiple operating systems.
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