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To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (49885)	3/6/1998 10:06:00 AM
From: Paul Dieterich	Respond to of 186894

WSJ: Microsoft, Intel to Launch Plan to Grab Bigger Piece of Market for Workstations The Wall Street Journal -- March 6, 1998 Technology: By Lee Gomes Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. are joining forces to launch a mop-up operation involving high-tech workstations, a $16 billion market that is one of the computing duo's most spectacular recent success stories. In recent years, the two "Wintel" companies have made great strides selling to technically oriented computer users. Today, they are announcing a joint plan to go after the few portions of the technical market that have so far eluded them. While Wintel machines have made inroads in most technical areas, there are some, such as the software used to design computer chips, where Unix still dominates. Those areas are the focus of an event today in Seattle, at which Microsoft's Bill Gates is scheduled to join Craig Barrett, Intel's chief operating officer. The companies are expected to announce a program to help Unix software companies rewrite their programs to Windows NT. In addition, Intel is expected to give an early peek at a new computer-hardware specification that will lead to machines with faster memory and better graphics, both important requirements for technical computer owners. Intel said that by the end of next year, a Wintel workstation will have the overall capabilities of a Unix machine costing three times more. Technical computer users had for many years preferred computers that ran the Unix operating system and that were sold by such suppliers as Sun Microsystems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Unix was considered more sophisticated than Microsoft's Windows, and the chips sold by Sun and H-P were generally more powerful than those from Intel. But as Microsoft and Intel improved their operating system and microprocessor products, technically oriented software companies rewrote their programs to run on Wintel machines. Those machines are usually less costly than Unix-style computers and have the extra advantage of running the many thousands of programs available for personal computers. The result has been a rapid shift toward Wintel in the technical market. International Data Corp., a research outfit, said in a January report that machines using Microsoft's Windows NT operating system outsold Unix in workstations for the first time in 1997 -- and by a 2-1 margin. What's more, IDC said, NT workstations were growing at an 80% clip, while Unix sales declined by 7%. Total NT workstation sales last year were $6 billion, IDC said. Because Unix machines tend to cost more, Unix sales were higher -- $10 billion -- despite their lower unit numbers. The move to Wintel workstations is forcing Unix companies to shift strategies. Sun, for example, started out selling to engineering users, but now focuses on mainframe-style business computers known as "servers." Still, Ken Okin, general manager of Sun's workstation group, called today's Wintel event "a lot of marketing hype" meant to disguise the fact that Unix machines still have a technical edge over Wintel devices. Meanwhile, Aart de Geus, chief executive of Synopsys Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., leader in the chip-design field, said his currently all-Unix company will be selling NT products by the end of the year. He also predicted NT will account for a quarter of the company's annual sales within two years.