Paul -
Here's a couple of items from PCWeek and Client-server news. There have been other hints in the press, and supposedly Eckhard Pfeiffer is going to showcase something on the 16th in his keynote address.
Alpha Support? The Chairman Does It His Way
By Spencer F. Katt, PC Week
May 22, 1998 2:03 PM PDT
Spencer F. Katt: Rumor Central
What do Frank Sinatra, Bill Gates and Indonesia's President Suharto have in common? Not a damn thing, which is why Spencer was so frustrated after spending hours trying to find a common thread among last week's newsmakers.
The Chairman of the Board certainly got more sympathy during the week than Chairman Bill. "He was the alpha and the omega of it all," a distraught Tony Orlando (of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" fame) said in response to the passing of Ol' Blue Eyes.
El Gato doubts that Orlando was referring to Digital's processor, although the Alpha chip has been on the minds of many over the past few weeks. With the Digital-Compaq merger just about done, Compaq is pitching Microsoft to throw even more support behind NT on Alpha.
One Digital insider reports that execs from the soon-to-be-combined entity made a recent sojourn to Redmond to ask Gates that Microsoft do three things: publicly acknowledge that Digital/Compaq/Tandem will have the best NT platform for the enterprise, accelerate plans for improving Alpha NT support and endorse Digital Unix as the best option for mixed Unix-NT sites.
Gates apparently signed off on all three requests, which raises some interesting questions in the Mouser's mind about the future of Microsoft's enterprise alliance with Hewlett-Packard.
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SUBJECT: COMPAQ TO LEVERAGE NT IN DIGITAL DEAL
SOURCE: PC Week via First! by NewsEdge Corp.
DATE: May 31, 1998
INDEX: [4]
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PC Week via NewsEdge Corporation : As Compaq Computer Corp. and Digital Equipment Corp. near the close of their megamerger, it's becoming clear that enterprise-class Windows NT will be the combined company's cornerstone.
Compaq's Tandem Computers Inc. subsidiary, of Cupertino, Calif., and
Digital plan to expand on the latter's far-reaching Alliance for Enterprise Computing initiative with Microsoft Corp. and have set a target date of mid-1999 to make NT ready for the glass house, according to Digital Sources.
Specifically, the companies will work to enable Digital's ACMSxp
transaction processing system and Reliable Transaction Router to run on top of MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server), sources said.
ACMSxp is a program that manages data transfers between local and remote terminals--such as in the financial and travel industries--and provides integrity by ensuring that transactions don't get lost.
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|ClieNT Server NEWS |
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New York and London
June 8-12, 1998 Issue Number 253
The Independent Observer of Microsoft,
Windows NT and Other Phenomena
CSN 253-04 Alpha Contingent To Exploit Merced's Delay
Samsung, the Alpha chip's new market maker, has gotten some Dutch
courage from the fact that Merced is down and out until the year
2000 and is racing to exploit the delay. On Tuesday June 16 at PC
Expo in New York it is expected to roll out its new sales and
marketing subsidiary, the anticipated Alpha Volume Company, and
rechristen it the Alpha Processor Company (APC).
Compaq SVP John Rose, the guy who's heading up Compaq's merger with
DEC, is expected to be on hand, prepared to disclose a roadmap of
how Compaq intends to deploy the chip in boxes that Compaq itself
will sell. Microsoft is also coming to the party to tout Alpha as
the premier NT platform.
Rose and DEC CTO Bill Strecker visited Bill Gates a month or so ago
and asked for three things. First, that Microsoft publicly laud
Compaq-DEC-Tandem as having the best NT platform for the enterprise.
Second, that Microsoft greatly accelerate plans to improve Alpha NT
support. Third, that Microsoft endorse Digital Unix as the best Unix
to use in conjunction with NT. Gates in return wants better TP
scores on NT and so a team is being put in place to do it even if it
won't be easy. (Gates was apparently miffed at DEC's record-breaking
TP performance on Digital Unix.).
The new Alpha Processor Company, which for a while there looked like
it might borrow an old DEC marketing term and be called the Alpha
Powered Company, should start with about 25 people. As previously
reported, YJ Kim, Samsung's Alpha chip project group manager, is
supposed to be APC's director of marketing. DJ Chin, Samsung's CEO
in Korea, will be the unit's CEO as well. Apparently it is also
taking on some DEC technical staff. It remains to be seen whether
Samsung can market Alpha any better than DEC could, which was not at
all.
The 64-bit chip, the most highly performing piece of silicon in the
world, has never had a stronger wind at its back than now. Compaq
has always sought more independence from Intel and Alpha could help
it achieve that though competition between them would increase.
According to sources, about 300 Digital and Tandem engineers will focus on adding these improvements to MTS as well as NT clustering beyond Microsoft's Wolfpack technology.
In exchange, Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., is expected to further embrace Alpha as an NT platform. For example, Microsoft is including Digital's FX32 translation software into the NT 5.0 kernel. |
