After the Big Rollout, Bankers Assess Windows 95
1995; American Bankers Association; Volume: 87; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0194-5947
Autores Tópico(s)Business Process Modeling and Analysis
ResumoOn Aug. 24, Leland E. Wines picked up his personal copy of Windows 95 and installed it on his Pentium computer at home. He had already spent almost two years preparing for this day at his bank, Bank of Walnut Creek ($133 million), in Walnut Creek, Calif. Wines, executive vice-president and chief financial officer, had attended several Microsoft seminars on the approaching operating system and had upgraded most of the bank's 60 personal computers to be able to run the new system. Most now have the 486 processors and eight megabytes of RAM required to run Windows 95. (Consultants suggest having 12 to 16 megabytes of RAM, depending on what applications the system is going to run.) By yearend the bank will have rolled out Windows 95 at some of its branch offices, and by mid-1996 the system should be installed throughout the branch network and the main office. Why the rush? For one thing, the bank's PCs, which have been running mostly DOS application programs under Windows operating have been vulnerable to general protection failures and other lockups and incompatibilities. Windows 95 should reduce the number of crashes. Another improvement involves access to the mainframe. To get into the host computer, the bank's PCs have to emulate a dumb terminal, and this has been a clumsy process. Branch staff with Windows programs have had to exit Windows, go into DOS, get into the emulator, retrieve their information, then go back to Windows. As a result, Windows wasn't very prevalent in the branch systems, says Wines. In Windows 95, they should be able to simply click on an icon and emulation will take place. Bank of Walnut Creek is unusual. Other banks that use DOS or Windows, even if they plan to migrate to Windows 95 eventually, are taking a wait-and-see attitude--wait until the bugs of the new software get worked out and see if all the promised improvements come. Some are upgrading to a different system, such as IBM's or Windows NT; some don't feel the need to upgrade at all. Chase Manhattan Bank, which uses mostly Windows 3.1 on its desktops, is considering upgrading to Windows 95, according to Paul Turino, second vice-president of corporate technology and information services. What he likes about Windows 95 is the consistency of the user interface, the plug and play feature, and desktop support. Chase will begin testing Windows 95 with at least 250 users early next year. The bank is also evaluating Windows NT and hasn't ruled out using OS/2, he says. With 28,000-plus end users, you can't just flick a switch, he says. We have to look at what applications and management tools will be there in the future. Steve Hill, vice-president at AmSouth Bank who manages the 50 networked PCs in the cash management services department of the Birmingham, Ala., bank, is trying out Windows 95. I'm going to review a copy of Windows 95 for our internal retail lockbox image-based system to see whether the speed is faster or more stable than what we've got, which is Windows for Workgroups 3.11, says Hill. OS/2, the prime contender While it's making progress among the 100 million users of DOS and Windows, Windows 95 is unlikely to sway the nine million users of OS/2, who are prevalent in the banking industry, particularly among large banks. Thirty-eight of the top 50 banks run enterprise-wide, and First Union, First Bank Systems, Wachovia, Bank of Boston, Union Bank, and NationsBank have made multi-million-dollar commitments to it. These bankers say they wouldn't trust anything less powerful than OS/2. The only operating system that comes close is Windows NT, which isn't yet a major player because it has only about 200,000 users and is considered a prelude to the Cairo system, which is due out in 1997 (although NT is gaining a good reputation and Microsoft expects Windows 95 will help boost sales of NT). OS/2 is very robust and reliable, says Walter E. …
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