The profusion of local-area network designs has led to a range of choices in installations and prices and some confusion for prospective users. Manufacturers tend to design systems first for linking their own equipment and then perhaps to accommodate a few rival brands of machines. Data is transmitted in a form particular to each network, and even the kinds of wires connecting these devices vary, limiting each network's applicability to only a few different makes of equipment.
Local-area networks range in price. An installed system can run from several thousand dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars, depending on the area covered, the number of attached devices, and the technology employed. For example, over half a dozen types of cable are used by competing local-area network schemes, with cost ranging from a few cents to $3 per foot. More expensive wiring may transmit signals more rapidly from scattered workstations or even transmit several signals simultaneously, including voice and video communications. But cheaper wiring may be the only choice for linking devices from specific manufacturers. For instance, an Ethernet system cannot be used with Apple computers.
Cost will also vary, depending on whether you are buying computers from the manufacturer who sells the network or buying a network to link computers you already own. The price of interface circuits that plug into the chassis of popular microcomputer systems can be as low as a few hundred dollars per station, but sophisticated electronics assuring error-free data transmission can raise the cost to several thousand dollars per workstation. Despite the incompatibility of rival networking systems, the choice of systems for every budget is one reason local-area networks are expected to grow from a few thousand computerized office devices connected in 1982 to more than 5 million by 1992.
At the Houston-based law firm of Andrews & Kurth, a 130-attorney office on five floors of the tallest building in the Southwest, a local-area network speeds the flow of draft documents and pays for itself with typeset-quality printing of corporate reports, prospectuses, and other legal papers. Savings in typesetting costs alone have justified the relatively expensive Ethernet system -- in this case with connecting cable and applications programs bought outright and the Xerox workstations leased as a hedge against equipment obsolescence.
According to Dennis McGuire, the firm's director of administration, the decision to use a local-area network was prompted by an impending move to the Texas Commerce Tower, a newly completed 75-story office skyscraper. "We knew it would be a lot easier to install the cable before the ceiling went in, so we started to survey the possibilities. We chose Ethernet because it was compatible with the Xerox word processing equipment we were already using.
"With legal documents going through 3 to 10 revisions, revising drafts used to take days of circulating and retyping," he recalls. "We would have to walk documents from office to office for editing and approval, wasting valuable time for everyone concerned. And then you'd have to wait for a typesetter outside the office to do the final composition. We felt there had to be a better way of doing things."
Last January, Andrews & Kurth moved into its new quarters, complete with conveniently located Ethernet cables. Adding office equipment to the network can be as easy as plugging a jack into the nearest receptacle. The computerized workstations on this local-area network include five Xerox 860 word processors and six top-of-the-line Xerox 8010 Star professional workstations. A file cabinet-size Xerox 8031 File Server hard-disk memory device has enough capacity to store the equivalent of 4,500 typewritten pages. The electronic Xerox 8044 Print Server laser printer cari produce 12 typeset-quality pages per minute.
"Now we can draft and print documents in hours, instead of days," says McGuire. "First drafts are usually edited on our stand-alone Xerox 850 secretarial word processors with one-line displays. When documents are ready for final editing, they can be transferred on standard 8 1/4-inch diskettes to our 860s." The 860 word processors' full-page displays allow on-screen formatting of documents, to see how they will look when printed out. The 860s can also directly transmit text via Ethernet to the more expensive Star workstations, where lawyers and assistants can decide on different typefaces and final layout before sending the document electronically to the high-speed printer. Designed to take full advantage of Ethernet's easily learned command structure, the Star workstation features picture-coded option menus illustrating the terminology used on the network. "The system is so flexible that we have hardly had to change any of our office procedures," adds McGuire.
From entering orders and controlling inventory to selecting suppliers and scheduling personnel, a local-area network integrates all aspects of resource planning at Triple-A Specialty Co., a Chicago-based company specializing in making battery chargers and booster cables. The network is a Datapoint ARC system, connecting a Datapoint 5500 minicomputer purchased in 1976 to 15 additional Datapoint workstation/processors employed as desktop computers or word processors, installed as needed in the several attached buildings that serve as Triple-A's main plant and headquarters.
"Use of the network cuts across the entire company, from executives to clerks," says executive vice-president Gary Raymond. "It has helped us economize on personnel in some areas. We used to need seven employees for order entry and seven more for billing. Now we have eight people handling the same work in a combined department. But our biggest savings have come from better resource planning, saving us a quarter of a million dollars a year in interest charges for excess inventory and almost $1 million in capital freed up for use elsewhere."
