F O R I N T E R N A L U S E O N L Y COMPETITIVE ACTION - WEEKLY UPDATE JUNE 24, 1993 If you would like to be added, deleted or you have changed locations, please send a message to Competitive /HP6650. 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 CC = Corporate Computing CIO = CIO CW = Computer World DM = Datamation DNR = Digital news & review EN = Electronic News IW = Information Week MS = Midrange Systems NC = NCR Connection OST = Open Systems Today RSM = RS/Magazine SE = Sun Expert SO = Sun Observer SJMN = San Jose Mercury News SW = Sun World UGX = Unigram-X UR = Unix Review UW = Unix World WN = Workstation News WSJ = Wall Street Journal Editor, Nadine Halsted *********************************************************** INSTRUCTIONS FOR REQUESTING MORE INFORMATION *********************************************************** Send a message to Competitive /HP6650 and include: 1. Name 2. Non-telnet and telnet fax number. For numbers outside of the US, please note as international. 3. Number that precedes the article you need 4. Limit your request for faxing to a maximum of 3 articles. For 4 or more articles, send your mail stop or street address. Missing or incorrect information may delay delivery of your request. *********************************************************** DG ARTICLES *********************************************************** 649. ** LAST OF THE 88000s? DATA GENERAL SETS NEW 88110 AViiONs (UGX, 6/21/93, pg. 1) DG, the only mainstream system manufacturer still supporting Motorola's 88000 series RISC microprocessor, will announce a new generation of AViiON servers. Prices of the servers are expected to start in the $200,000 - $300,000 range. *********************************************************** DIGITAL ARTICLES *********************************************************** 650. ** GENERAL ELECTRIC UNIT TO BUY COMPUTER-LEASING BUSINESS (WSJ, 6/21/93, pg. B4) DEC and GE Capital Corp. agreed for GE Capital to acquire DEC's US computer-leasing business and be DEC's delivery partner for the support of financial services. DEC said the company decided to sell the business to focus on computer manufacturing. 651. ** DEC BACKS COSE, DECLARES END TO UNIX WARS (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 1) DEC says it will participate in the COSE working groups and make available some of its technologies and expertise. DEC sees the advent of COSE as a clear signal that the Unix Wars are at an end, and that Unix environments are becoming unified. *********************************************************** HP ARTICLES *********************************************************** 652. ** SAMSUNG HP CLONE (SE, 6/93, pg. 76) Samsung has introduced workstations based on the PA-RISC processor. Called SWS715 workstations, the machines offer performance of 69 SPECmarks(89) at 50 MHz, 37 SPECint (92) and 72 SPECfp (92). 653. ** COMCAR INDUSTRIES INC. (CIO, 6/1/93, pg. 46) Comcar, a trucking company, downsized from a mainframe to an HP Unix network of workstations and minicomputers as part of a management decentralization effort. The Unix system significantly increased the availability of information. 654. ** COMMENTS (UGX, 6/21/93, pg. 8) Dow Jones & Co. Inc's Telerate unit has given HP an exclusive four-year multi-million dollar contract to supply HP Apollo 9000 Series 700 Unix workstations on which Telerate will deliver its financial information to brokers and dealers. 655. ** AIRLINE TAKES HP ROUTE. BIG VOLUME, NOT BIG IRON (IW, 6/21/93, pg. 69) With 1,500 users and a high-volume of mission-critical applications, Morris Air might have looked at a mainframe solution. But Morris choose to upgrade their HP 3000 to a 4-way Model 992/400 to get "mainframe performance at minicomputer prices." The company also considered the IBM AS/400, but found it offered "slower performance for the same price." 656. ** HATACHI BUYS A LICENSE TO HP OPENVIEW (UGX, 6/7/93, pg. 7) HP is fast becoming a major source of system software to the rest of the industry. Hitachi has licensed HP's OpenView network and system management software, planning to make it the basis of its NETM Comet network management product family. 657. ** HP BULKS UP NET MANAGER. OPENVIEW FOR WINDOWS READIED FOR END USERS (CW, 6/7/93, pg. 62) HP is grooming its OpenView for Windows, a runaway success in the network management OEM market, as an application-rich, end-user network management platform. 658. ** COMMENTS (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 8) HP acknowledges it is taking a leadership position in COSE, saying on the one hand how interested it is in getting COSE to work and on the other hand leaving the impression that COSE might fall apart without it. 659. ** COMMENTS (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 8) In another downsizing from mainframe to Unix, Weyerhaeuser has given HP a multi-year contract worth up to $25 million to implement its next generation computing systems. 660. ** IBM, HP, AND SUN SET INTEROPERABLE OBJECT PLAN (OST, 6/21/93, pg. 1) IBM, HP and SunSoft announced their intentions to collaborate in the field of object-oriented technology. The companies will use a set of common distributed object interfaces on each of its own distributed object development programs that will allow software developers to create, manage, and use applications across multiple computing environments. 661. ** REWARD. THE LOW-END PRICE/PERFORMANCE PAIR (DNR, 6/7/93, pg. 51) The HP 9000 715/33 versus the DEC 3000 300L. Both systems exceed expectations in performance and price/performance. The tested HP system was priced at $5,695. The DEC model was priced at $6,495, plus $1,425 for a disk drive (This was required because diskless workstations are not supported under OSF/1) and $705 for a KAP FORTRAN preprocessor. 662. ** NEW UNIX SERVERS NEXT WEEK FROM HP (OST, 6/21/93, pg. 4) HP will introduce six Unix-based servers, including three multiprocessors, for its HP 9000 series 800 family. The June 28 rollout will feature new members of its G, H, and I series server lines that are intended as a midway offering between HP's current uniprocessor systems and the multiprocessor Corporate Business Server line. *********************************************************** IBM ARTICLES *********************************************************** 663. ** CHECKS AND BALANCES (MS, 6/8/93, pg. 7) To help banks control the costs of check processing, IBM has extended its check imaging software from its S/370 and S/390 processors to the AS/400. Image Enabling Services delivers high speed capture, storage and retrieval of images in a database. 664. ** TALIGENT TALKS (RS, 6/93, pg. 12) After a year of silence, the Apple - IBM joint venture, Taligent, unveiled some details of its efforts to develop an object-oriented operating environment. It plans to release products by 1995, but various versions and pieces of the technology are expected to be released in stages to enable users to quickly implement the full technology. 665. ** IBM PLANS A VERSION OF CICS FOR NT (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 2) IBM announced that CICS will be put under NT as part of IBM's plan to downsize the transaction processing environment used by large companies to build mission critical applications. CICS for Windows NT will be functionally equivalent to the client-server version for OS/2. 666. ** IBM READY TO UNVEIL ITS DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM OBJECT MODEL CROSS-SYSTEM PRODUCT (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 2) IBM is beginning to push its object-oriented development expertise and its Distributed System Object Model. DSOM attempts to be a cross-system product that enables objects to work together, irrespective of the machine on which they run or the language in which they were written. 667. ** COMMENTS (UGX, 6/21/93, pg. 8) IBM is using IDC's figures to demonstrate that IBM is the number one Unix vendor in terms of dollar volume. IBM's figures show it at $1.28 billion versus HP at $1.17 billion. 668. ** COMMENTS (UGX, 6/21/93, pg. 8) IBM is talking about a four-way PowerPC 620 symmetric multiprocessor for early next year with two processors to a card and shared memory. The system may perform 2000 TPC-As. IBM's plans are symmetric multiprocessing up to 6-way, PowerPC-based clusters from 8 to 32 processors, and then the RIOS 2-based Power Parallel line. *********************************************************** MICROSOFT ARTICLES *********************************************************** 669. ** MICROSOFT PUBLISHES ITS HATCHET JOB ON UNIX (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 7) Microsoft's paper on Windows NT and Unix - Interoperability and Competition- claims that more than 60% of Unix customers are evaluating or considering NT, and that of all the applications being ported to NT, 25% are from Unix, VMS and MVS. *********************************************************** NCR ARTICLES *********************************************************** 670. ** NCR MOBILIZES PENTIUM TO PLUG GAPS (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 2) Showing evidence of a new, aggressive posture in the computer market, NCR introduced an onslaught of new server-class computer products to what is already the most comprehensive family of business solutions in the world. NCR announced bundled fault-resilient capability using NCR LifeKeeper software and new price-performance entry points. *********************************************************** SUN ARTICLES *********************************************************** 671. ** PUSHING ON A STRING (SW, 6/93, pg. 6) For users migrating to Solaris 2, it's a mixed bag. Users have to recompile their own applications. But few commercial applications have yet released their Solaris 2 versions. Users have to run the older versions remotely, using their new Sun box as an X terminal. Also, Solaris 2 is slow. 672. **POWER PC SHINES FOR SUN (RS, 6/93, pg. 8) Sun subsidiary SunSoft plans to port its Solaris 32-bit operating system to future PowerPC-based system, saying it will be available sometime in the first quarter of next year. 673. ** NT PORT TO SPARC UNDER DISCUSSION (UGX, 6/14/93, pg. 5) Microsoft has admitted to having preliminary discussions with Sun about porting Windows NT to the Sparc chip. Microsoft also confirmed discussions with HP on moving NT to the PA-RISC chip. 674. ** COMMENTS (UGX, 6/14,93, pg. 8) The three year old Sun Users Group - independent of Sun Microsystems - has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Its demise is blamed on personnel turnover, administration problems and an increasingly antagonistic relationship with Sun. *********************************************************** OTHER *********************************************************** 675. ** FUJITSU GETS A HELPING HAND FROM AN AMERICAN BUDDY (BW, 6/28/93, pg. 46) Fujitsu has been distributing Sun workstations in Japan under its own brand since 1988. Fujitsu expects to sell 10,000 units this year. The success has prompted Fujitsu to expand ties with Sun, including an agreement to share software. Fujitsu also plans to develop a new line of parallel processing computers that might one day replace mainframes. ******************* END OF DOCUMENT ********************