bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

IBM will supply the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club with network infrastructure for on-course cash betting systems and business administration.

  The new systems are expected to be in place by the start of the next racing season.

  The $17 million deal is part of a wider plan by the Jockey Club to redevelop its information technology infrastructure.

  IBM will supply two Ethernet FL/FB based fibre optic networks.

  One will link the 3,000 cash betting terminals at Shatin and Happy Valley together and to back-end servers. The other will support the Jockey Club's business administration and office automation functions.

   The equipment includes 44 IBM 8260 and 8224 LAN hubs and 2 Netview network management stations. IBM will train Jockey Club operators on the new systems.

  John Markwell, the Jockey Club's director of information technology said IBM was chosen after a three phase bidding process.

  The field of competitors had narrowed to IBM and Digital by the start of the final bidding phase.

  Mr Markwell said: 'We were looking for a solution which satisfied our open systems interface standards and met our high performance criteria, from a vendor who was responsive, could deliver on a very tight schedule, and who has a good reputation for post implementation support.'   He said the cash betting terminals at the two race courses had been linked by an old point-to-point network 'loaded with proprietary systems'.

  The original network had been supplied 15 years ago by a British company which is no longer operating.

  The Jockey Club had kept the system running by keeping a big stockpile of spares.

  The Jockey Club intends using the structured cabling approach to support growth in its business over the next 10 years.

  Mr Markwell said the Club expected betting transaction levels to keep up with inflation but the nature of betting would change.

  'The customer interface will change over time,' he said. 'It will move from being operator-intensive to more self-vending and from cash to cashless and ticket-based to ticketless.'   Multimedia applications would begin to be incorporated in the betting system and smart card technology, which had proven very successful in trials at the end of last season, would be expanded.

  Using sophisticated devices such as smart cards placed greater demands on the Jockey Club's system, Mr Markwell said.

  A second LAN network had to be added to the existing system to run the smart cards.

  As part of its successful bid for the networking project, IBM ran a pilot program for the Jockey Club from March to June.

  General manager of IBM Hong Kong Samuelson Young said: 'We have been working with the RHKJC on establishing a skills process and implementing the self-vending terminals project and we are glad to embark on yet another IT project.'    Yesterday, IBM said it had signed a software redistributorship deal with China's biggest software company, China National Computer Software and Technology Service Corporation (CS & S).

  Under the terms of the deal, CS & S will distribute IBM's full range of desktop software and the two companies will co-operate on software application promotion and training.

  They will also work together in developing industry solutions using products in the OS/2 family.

   IBM announced last week it would offer free replacement rubber caps for the TrackPoint pointing devices on five of its ThinkPad notebook models.

  The company said it had discovered that the rubber caps used on some ThinkPad 340CSE, 360C, 370C, 750C and 755C models contained high levels of sulphur which could have contributed to keyboard malfunction.

  The company estimated that less than two per cent of these models in Hong Kong could be affected by the problem.

  The free replacements are being offered to all owners of the five models regardless of warranty status.

  The replacement caps are the same as those included as standard on IBM's latest ThinkPad models.

  They can be obtained from September 18 at authorised dealers and retailers.



IBM to supply Jockey Club with betting network