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Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (850)	10/5/1998 8:48:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

IBM to offer powerful new line-up of workstations--Reuters NEW YORK, N.Y., Oct 4 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. said it will unveil Monday a family of computer workstations with the fastest graphics-processing in the industry on models running either its quickest PowerPC microprocessor or Intel Corp.'s latest chip. The workstations include IBM's top-of-the-line RS/6000 Model 260 for product designers and engineers, especially in aerospace, car and drug manufacturing, who can build three-dimensional models and immediately run test simulations, processes that generally require separate machines. The computer can manipulate the massive blueprints for Boeing's latest 777 aircraft, allowing engineers to tinker with design details down to the single screw or wire and then run flight simulations incorporating changes. IBM will unveil both RS/6000 Unix machines, powerful IntelliStation personal computer workstations running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT operating system and a graphics accelerator circuit board to boost the speed by which the computers can draw and redraw images on a screen, it said. The Model 260 features IBM's most powerful computer chip, the Power3, which provides more raw computing power than those from arch-rival workstation makers Hewlett-Packard Co. , Silicon Graphics Inc. or Sun Microsystems Inc., , the company said. That claim that marks the first time in years IBM can make that boast. In an industry where computer workstation makers are constantly leap-frogging each other with ever more powerful processors, IBM had remained largely confined to a high-end niche in the aircraft and auto product design fields. "This new model offers significantly higher performance than any other 3D workstation available at any price," John Holz, IBM vice president for Workstation Marketing and Product Management. "We have not been in the front of the pack in sheer performance for several years." IBM also is offering a new video conferencing product to foster teamwork via the Internet by enabling real-time collaboration between workgroups of engineers using different Unix and NT systems, priced at $6,500. "In the real world, the debate is not Unix or NT," Holz said. "Rather, the question is how do the two work together to deliver just what our customers need to boost productivity and compete more effectively," he said. IBM said its new IntelliStation Z Pro is the company's extreme-performance PC workstation, ideal for computing and graphics-intensive two-and three-dimensional software used by designers of packaged goods products, movie special effects and computer chip blueprints. Officials estimated that prices for the new IntelliStations will start at $4,150. Other new workstations include the RS/6000 Model 150, running a 375 megahertz PowerPC chip, a faster version of IBM's most popular workstation, the Model 140. The machine's estimated price will be $9,995. The Model 150 is meant for computer-aided mechanical design work and can also function as an Internet server used to control a business Web site. The Model 260, which will be available later this month at prices starting around $19,000, is the first IBM product to use the newest generation of the microprocessor that powered Deep Blue, the RS/6000 supercomputer that successfully challenged chess champion Garry Kasparov. The Power3 is a 200 megahertz, 64-bit chip that functions like eight chips in one and is boosted by a memory subsystem that can process more than six billion bits a second, allowing the Power3 to outperform competitors' chips running two to three times faster, IBM said. ((Eric Auchard, New York newsdesk, 212-859-1840))