Switching on the power

PDRs take over from pen and PaPer

Broadbandne~~rks UKdominatesEurope

The UK has established a massive gun the process of installing broadlead over Japan and other Western band networks. The figures also cover the Far East European countries in broadband Portable data recorders (PDRs) art technology for networking large com- and Australia and surprisingly Austrapidly taking over from pen ant puter sites. Recent marketing figures ralia has more network ports installed paper in the USA. For remote dat: prepared in the USA show that the than West Germany. The Far East recording, programmable PDRs havt UK has 40% of the world market including Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea accounts for 11% of almost taken over the worldwide PDE outside North America. market rapturing 1984 unit sales OI The figures are based on network the world market. Average network 145000 compared with 25000 unit: ports connected to broadband local size in the Far East is 71 ports. The results of the survey were for non-programmable machines. area network equipment. The results A recent US study suggests thal show that Switzerland and the Low prepared by Syteck, the US company although the market is favourablt Countries (Holland and Belgium) are which supplies broadband local area towards PDRs at present competitior quite advanced in broadband net- network equipment worldwide. (In~ech~ola~~ Ltd, ~ech~oIo~ is fierce. The market faces competi works holding 22% and 10% of the fo~ati~ House, Victoria Rd, Winchester, Hants tion from both external and interna: world market respectively. But 0 forces. Internally, non-programmabh France and Italy are trailing behind SO23 7DU, UK) PDRs compete with more popular which indicates they have barely beprogrammable units and externally al PDRs must compete with portabk computers and semi-portable units. In order to maintain their positior PDRs must be reliable. This meam ease of use, ability to interface wit1 other peripherals and equipment. The principle application of PDR: is in data collection and transmission. In recent years bar coding of goods has become commonplace applica. tion. Advances in software means thal many vendors are now offering botl software for the terminal and the hos computer as well as industry specifi, software. According to the report PDR bene fits to users include programmability two-way communications, faster err0 checking and multiple functions (Frost G, Sullivan inc., 106 Fulton St New York, .NY 10038, USA) c

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june 1986