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IBM to launch Intel workstations Tuesday
Reuters Story - March 17, 1997 17:46
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NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuter) - International Business
Machines Corp said it will unveil Tuesday its much awaited
low-cost workstations using Intel Corp's PentiumPro
chips, at prices ranging from $3,700 to $10,000.
Last week, IBM executives told Reuters at the CeBIT
computer show in Hanover, Germany that IBM would use Intel
chips in new workstations, called IntelliStations, that will
run Microsoft Corp's Windows NT operating system.
IBM will launch the new family at a press conference
Tuesday. The workstations will be aimed at commercial,
engineering and scientific markets, the spokesman said.
The new workstations will compete with the low-end of IBM's
current workstation family, the RS/6000, designed around the
PowerPC processor and IBM's version of UNIX called AIX.
IBM co-developed the PowerPC chip with Motorola Inc
and Apple Computer Inc . The RS/6000 workstations are
more expensive, higher powered and can perform more intense
mathematical calculations than the new models.
The new IntelliStation family will be marketed the Personal
Workstation unit, a group which was formed last year and IBM's
RS/6000 salesforce will also market them.
Analysts said that IBM needed to embrace the
Intel/Microsoft architecture in workstations, especially as
some of its major PC rivals such as Compaq Computer Corp
and Dell Computer Corp and others are getting
into the workstation business with PentiumPro-based systems
running NT.
"The Intel chips and the NT operating environment...have
become robust enough to provide a lower-cost alternative to
UNIX," said Joe Clabby, an analyst with the Aberdeen Group.
"You have to give your customer what they are going to buy. If
IBM doesn't offer it, they will buy it from someone else."
IBM also said that its adoption of the Intel/Microsoft
architecture is by no means a death knell for the PowerPC chip.
While the PowerPC chip has fallen short of its developers
initial hopes, IBM said it remains committed to the PowerPC.
The chip is used in many product lines, from the RS/6000 to the
AS/400 minicomputer family to its SP supercomputers and now it
will also become the heart of its network computer.
"It's still a strategic architecture for IBM," a spokesman
said. It also powers Apple's Macintoshes and Mac clones. |
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