Teaching a mainframe new tricks

VeriFone (VFI) has introduced a payment-processing system that will allow companies to easily add support for Internet payment and smart cards to legacy mainframe systems.

Omnihost 3.0 is a full-payment processing system for banks, credit card processors, and other businesses. It is a hardware and software package comprised of VeriFone's payment processing system, Hewlett-Packard Unix-based servers, and Oracle database software.

The package is aimed at businesses that want to add support for new e-commerce technology to traditional payment processing systems. VeriFone says the package is intended to shelter legacy systems, such as mainframes and large Unix-based systems, from e-commerce technology.

Omnihost will also let companies bring e-commerce transaction processing in-house, instead of relying on outside service bureaus to process payments.

Pricing, which begins at $35,000, is based on the number of monthly transactions. Omnihost 3.0 is compatible with VeriFone's vGate, its gateway software that allows financial institutions to connect to the Internet securely. Omnihost, which runs on Unix systems and includes Windows 95 client software, will be marketed primarily by VeriFone's sales force.