F O R I N T E R N A L U S E O N L Y COMPETITIVE ACTION - WEEKLY UPDATE JANUARY 28, 1993 Welcome to the new Competitive Action Weekly. If you need more information about these articles, please send an HP Desk message to Competitive HP/6650 Include your name, non-telnet FAX number and the number that precedes the article you need. If you would like to be added, deleted or you have changed locations, please send a message to Competitive HP/6650. Include your HPDesk address. Competitive Action is posted to HP-UX notes in the group hp.marketing. The string is entitled "hp.competition for ". BC = Beyond Computing BW = Business Week CW = Computer World DNR = Digital news & review EN = Electronic News IW = Information Week MS = Midrange Systems OST = Open Systems Today RSM = RS/Magazine SO = Sun Observer SW = Sun World UGX = Unigram-X UR = Unix Review WN = Workstation News WSJ = Wall Street Journal Editor, Nadine Halsted ********************************************************* DIGITAL ARTICLES ********************************************************* 69. ** DEC REORGANIZATION IS "PARALYZING" THE COMPANY (UGX,1/18/93,pg.3) Word from inside DEC says the company is pretty much "paralyzed" because of the reorganization into business units and the fact that people are not in place. One senior middle manager estimated the reorganization has cost DEC six months. 70. ** COMMENTS (UGX,1/18/93,pg.8) DEC has successfully tested an operational 1,000 SpecMark Alpha multi- processing prototype, developed using gallium arsenide. And with the industry still digesting the earliest 64 bit technology, DEC's Advanced Technology Development engineers are supposedly working on a prototype 128-bit RISC architecture already under the code name "MRISC." 71. **COMMENTS (UGX,1/18/93,pg.8) To help its VAX or Mips users move to Alpha platforms, DEC has developed binary translation tools which can recompile programs for Alpha without source code. A penalty is translated binaries do not run as fast as programs compiled from source for Alpha - DEC says performance degradation is around 50%. 72. **NET VIEWS ALPHA ALONE ISN'T GOING TO SAVE DEC (OST,1/18/93,pg.81) DEC does not plan to offer OSF/1 on its larger systems, and will not have SMP support for OSF/1 for quite some time. HP, on the other hand, has made clear its single-OS strategy for HP-UX across its entire line of systems. DEC needs to work on its trade-up programs, which are horrendous. While announcing new systems, DEC sells older systems and charges up to 30% premiums to upgrade to a newer box. [Editors note: Make sure your prospect understands the price of upgrading with DEC. ] 73. ** COMMENTS (UGX,1/25/93,pg.8) DEC is struggling to come up with a clear, forthright statement on its Unix policy for a worldwide briefing planned for February 10. President Palmer is expected to be among those fielding questions. ********************************************************* HP ARTICLES ********************************************************* 74. ** AS HP EXTENDS LEAD OVER SUN, SNI, IBM (UGX,1/18/93,pg.7) One third of all growth in the European market was split between HP and IBM. IDC ranks HP as the number one Unix vendor in Europe, and says that firm increased its lead over second place Sun Microsystems during 1992. 75. ** IBM TO LICENSE HP OPENMAIL X.400 MTA (OST,1/18/93,pg.4) IBM has licensed HP Open Mail X.400 Message Transfer Agent (MTA) and other standards-based messaging technology from HP. IBM will select components of HP OpenMail, which run on HP-UX, and enhance and remarket them as an X.400 solution for the RS/6000. As more users buy enterprise wide X.400 backbones, IBM may be aiming to make a big, open systems messaging splash, using HP technology. 76. **COMMENTS (UGX,1/18/93,pg.8) Rumors are circulating about Microsoft's porting of NT to Sparc. Microsoft said it continues to appraise the situation but added that NT is more likely to appear on an HP PA-RISC chip before Sparc. 77. ** RISC SYSTEM REVENUES UP 45% (UGX,1/25/93,pg.7) RISC systems revenues rose 45% last year to $17.5 billion. HP's PA- RISC architecture retained its leadership position with a $1 billion lead over Sun's Sparc. Last year, HP received a 40% increase in RISC revenue and an 80% increase in units shipped. This year HP should benefit from users fleeing IBM. It gives IBM little chance of achieving its stated goal of becoming the Unix workstation and server leader by the end of 1994. ********************************************************* IBM ARTICLES ********************************************************* 78. ** IBM SETS 64-CPU RS/6000 PARALLEL MACHINE FOR FEBRUARY 2 (UGX,1/18/93,pg.1) IBM has a busy February lined up with mainframe kickers expected February 9, and AS/400 models February 16. The company has inked in February 2 for an array of new RS/6000's. Expected is improved system performance and graphics flexibility for the mainstream Power Stations and Servers, and a scalable, parallel processing system. This will be an eight-to 64-processor machine with a theoretical 6 GFLOPS. 79. ** IBM UPS PARALLEL PACE (CW,1/18/93,pg.1) IBM is readying its first parallel processing machine for the commercial world, a database engine that will be announced in the second quarter. Initial price points are expected to be about $15,000 per MIP, compared with a list price of about $100,000 per MIPS (discounted to $55,000 per MIPS) for a traditional mainframe. IBM's parallel processing plan includes - Entry level, 1993, form 4 to 100 CPUs. Highly parallel, 1995- 1996, up to 500 CPUs. Massively parallel, 1997 - 2000, unknown number of CPUs. [Editors note: This machine will use the ES/9000 mainframe chip. If your prospect needs a database engine, HP has a much more cost effective solution.] 80. ** ADVERTISEMENT (OST -supplement, 1/18/93, inside cover) Sign of the times. Yes, we're OPEN. To connect with Apple, Bull, DEC, HP, NCR, Sun and Unisys, call IBM 81. ** CA EMBRACES IBM'S RS/6000 (IW,1/25/93,pg.16) Computer Associates International Inc. said last week it had struck a deal with IBM to port CA-Unicenter for Unix to IBM's RS/6000. Slated for general availability early next year, the systems management software will also run on Unix platforms from HP and Sun. [Editors note: If your prospect needs this software, tell your prospect that there is a cost associated with delaying a system installation. Avoid the cost and install HP today.] 82. ** IBM WAVES GOOD-BYE TO WORST YEAR IN COMPANY'S HISTORY (CW,1/25/93,pg.4) Financial results include; Mainframe revenue fell 12% for the year. PC's down by 15%. Software rose 5.8%. Non hardware sales, which include consulting, software and leasing hardware, accounted for 48% of IBM's 1992 revenue. The new AS/400 F models are expected to better the E models price/performance by 30%. The RS/6000s sell most strongly in accounts that already have some IBM gear. Analyst say "HP is beating them up in the commercial marketplace." [Editors note: Nice write up for HP versus the RS/6000.] ********************************************************* INTERGRAPH ARTICLES ********************************************************* 83. ** INTERGRAPH ENHANCES ITS C400 CLIPPER-BASED LINES (UGX,1/25/93,pg.3) Intergraph has wheeled out new families of its computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering workstations and servers based on its RISC C400 Clipper. The series 2700, Series 6700 and Series 6800 workstation and servers will support NT as well as Unix. Prices range from $14,900 to $50,000 for workstations and $12,500 to $70,000 for servers. The company has not made good on its promise to offer OSF/1. ********************************************************* NCR ARTICLES ********************************************************* 84. ** NCR TO SHUT FORMER TERADATA EUROPEAN OPERATIONS (UGX,1/18/93,pg.3) NCR is closing its Teradata Corp. or large systems divisions in the UK and Europe and is relocating staff elsewhere. NCR said that Teradata and NCR staff will work together on upgrades for existing Teradata installations, but the NCR 3600 will take precedence from now on. 85. ** NEW NCR SOFTWARE PROMISES FAULT RESILIENCE AT LOW PRICE (OST,1/18/93,pg.1) NCR this week is expected to introduce software that promises a two- minute ceiling on downtime while decreasing the cost and minimum hardware configuration needed to achieve such fault resilience - but only if you buy NCR hardware. The product, called LifeKeeper, requires the use of a midrange system 3000 and is priced from $6,000 to $30,000. ********************************************************* SGI ARTICLES ********************************************************* 86. ** SILICON FLEXES 3-D MUSCLE (CW,1/25/93,pg.8) Silicon Graphics upped the ante in the technical computing market today with the introduction of a line of advanced graphics super computers said to be 10 times more powerful than any previous SGI system. Along with the Onyx line of graphics super computers, SGI is rolling out a $35,000 Indigo 2 Extreme workstation, which is scheduled to ship this quarter with a 100MHz CPU. [Editors note: For more information about this announcement, please check the workstation hotline subject EZSGI193.] 87. ** SGI UPGRADING INDIGO, CLIMBING EVEREST (OST,1/18/93,pg.4) Being readied for introduction shortly after next week is a 16-processor R4400 multiprocessing machine, code named Everest. It is designed for high-end animation and simulation. 88. ** INDIGO R4000: VALUE-PACKED (WN,2/93,pg.14) In both $/Khomerstone and $/Ghraphstone the R4000 beat the HP 710, 720, RS/6000 340 and 320H. In these same categories the HP 710 and 720 beat both the RS/6000 340 and 320H. ********************************************************* SUN ARTICLES ********************************************************* 89. ** EMPHASYS SYSTEM/36 - TO - UNIX SOFTWARE ON SUNS (UGX,1/18/93,pg.5) Sun Microsystems will be increasing its attack into the IBM installed commercial base with Emphasys Software putting its Cross/36 migration tool on Sparc machines running both Solaris 1.1 and 2.1. It will provide true source code compatibility and allow applications to be developed on either platform. The S/36 market is thought to be prime for rightsizing. The new SparcClassic is being offered as an exemplary commercial development platform because of its price point. [Editors note: Check the GSY Hotline subject CONVERT for S/36 conversion packages.] 90. **SUN TOOL WILL HELP PORT WINDOWS PROGRAMS TO SOLARIS (DNR,1/1893,pg.18) SunSelect is preparing for a mid-year release of interface software that will permit applications written for Microsoft Windows to run on its Solaris 2.0 operating system. This technology will eventually make it possible for users to run off the shelf Windows applications that can be purchased at retail software outlets. 91. **BUMPY ROAD AHEAD FOR SOLARIS? (OST,1/18/93,pg.52) Sun PR folks like to hype 2.x's multithreaded kernel as dramatically increasing system performance. Unfortunately, Sun is still not bundling a threads library with Solaris, so you can't create programs to take advantage of all that dramatic performance. End users won't notice much difference, but for system administrators moving to 2.1 means a move from BSDisms to SVR4isms and a short, but steep learning curve. [Editors note: Make sure your prospect understands these performance implications.] 92. **HP OFFERS TRADE-IN (CW,1/25/93,pg.6) With an eye to those 100,000 users still chugging away on former Apollo Domain based machines, HP last week announced its most extensive trade-up program. And not to be outdone, this week Sun is expected to counter with its own expanded trade-up program for Apollo users. ********************************************************* OTHER ********************************************************* 93. ** APPLE "READIES TOOLBOX FOR AIX, HP-UX, SOLARIS" (UGX,1/18/93,Pg.1) Reports filtered out of the latest MacWorld about an Apple Computer project, code named Cat in the Hat, that aims to port the Apple ToolBox, the source of the Mac interface, over to IBM's AIX in six months, to HP- UX in nine months and to Sun Sparc machines after that. 94. **TANDEM DRIVES CLIENT/SERVER (CW,1/25/93,pg.2) A year after outlining its client/server strategy, Tandem this week will launch a series of software products that support cooperative processing between Tandem's fault tolerant computers and a wide array of desktop machines. Tandem's C/S tool kit ties Tandem's proprietary Guardian system to a wide range of clients, including Unix, OS/2, MS-DOS and Macintosh clients. 95. ** CLIENT/SERVER STRATEGIES PERVASIVE (CW,1/25/93,pg.47) A survey showed several benefits to users, including better access to data, easier use of applications and overall productivity boosts. Respondents said that client/server applications have improved developers' productivity, which in turn translated to improved application quality and better customer service. [Editors note: This is a nice write up on the benefits of client/server implementations.]