PDRs take over from pen and PaPer Portable data recorders (PDRs) art rapidly taking over from pen ant paper in the USA. For remote dat: recording, programmable PDRs havt almost taken over the worldwide PDE market rapturing 1984 unit sales OI 145000 compared with 25000 unit: for non-programmable machines.

A recent US study suggests thal although the market is favourablt towards PDRs at present competitior is fierce. The market faces competi tion from both external and interna: forces. Internally, non-programmabh PDRs compete with more popular programmable 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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Broadband ne~~rks - UK dominates Europe The UK has established a massive lead over Japan and other Western European countries in broadband technology for networking large com- puter sites. Recent marketing figures prepared in the USA show that the UK has 40% of the world market outside North America.

gun the process of installing broad- band networks.

The figures are based on network ports connected to broadband local area network equipment. The results show that Switzerland and the Low Countries (Holland and Belgium) are quite advanced in broadband net- works holding 22% and 10% of the world market respectively. But France and Italy are trailing behind which indicates they have barely be-

The figures also cover the Far East and Australia and surprisingly Aust- ralia has more network ports installed than West Germany. The Far East including Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea accounts for 11% of the world market. Average network size in the Far East is 71 ports.

The results of the survey were prepared by Syteck, the US company which supplies broadband local area network equipment worldwide. (In- fo~ati~ ~ech~ola~~ Ltd, ~ech~oIo~ House, Victoria Rd, Winchester, Hants SO23 7DU, UK) 0

vo128 no 5 june 1986