F O R I N T E R N A L U S E O N L Y COMPETITIVE ACTION - WEEKLY UPDATE JUNE 10, 1993 Welcome to the new Competitive Action Weekly. 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. *********************************************************** DIGITAL ARTICLES *********************************************************** 596. ** DEC STAYS IN THE PICTURE (IW, 5/31/93, pg. 15) Hoping to cut costs and unhappy with DEC's performance, Kodak was on the verge of stripping the computer maker's responsibility for Kodak's communications operation and turning it over to IBM's ISSC and Nynex. It now appears, however, that Kodak will be forced to stick with DEC for the remainder of the contract, which expires in 1995. 597. ** DEC NET MANAGEMENT TO SUPPORT NT (CW, 5/31/93, pg. 16) DEC announced it will support networked Microsoft Windows NT systems with its Polycenter network management platform. During the next 24 months, DEC will deliver Windows NT applications for monitoring system resource use and network traffic levels, as well as for managing software distribution and hardware and software configurations. 598. ** FREEDOM WRITER (CW, 5/31/93, pg. 98) DEC will be announcing changes to its software licensing practices. Multi- user licensing will be extended to include VAXstations, and personal use licenses will be transferable across VAX and Alpha platforms. *********************************************************** HP ARTICLES *********************************************************** 599. ** OVERHEARD (CC, 6/93, pg. 27) "God must have loved standards because He made so many of them." W. Roelandts, HP 600. ** NOW, HP STANDS FOR HOT PRODUCTS (BW, 6/14/93, pg. 36) The buzz at the recent Comdex show was all about a whizzy new ultraportable PC called OmniBook. Analyst estimate that HP could sell anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 units this year and predict it will take six months or more for a rival to develop a comparable system. "HP seems to have a better understanding of what the user wants in this market than any of its competitors," says BIS analyst Jeff Henning. 601. ** PRICE/PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS (DEC VERSUS HP) (DNR, 6/7/93, pg. 53) The DEC 3000 Model 300L AXP workstation breaks new ground in the CPU price/performance arena. However, a different story is told when X11perf results are used. The DEC workstation gives X windows price/performance of around $1,100 per DEC station 3100 X unit of performance. (DXUP). The HP workstation Model 715/33, on the other hand, due to its lower price and near-equal X windows performance, delivers its best DXUPs at just under $900 each. 602. ** NEXT AND HP SEEK OBJECT SOLUTION TO CLIENT/SERVER (DNR, 6/7/93, pg. 8) HP and Next announced the formation of Object Enterprise, a two-company initiative that they hope will deliver the industry's first client/server, enterprise-wide computing solution based on object-oriented technology. The companies also announced plans to integrate NextStep with the Object Management Group's Common Object Request Broker Architecture (Cobra), as well as the Open Software Foundation's DCE and DME. 603. ** NETDIRECTOR JOINS HP's OPENVIEW (DNR, 6/7/93, pg. 15) Ungerman-Bass tossed its hat into HP's Openview ring with a Unix-based version of its NetDirector network management software for the Open View platform. The announcement kicks of a long-term plan for both companies to pool resources in developing and marketing distributed LAN management technologies. 604. ** NETWORKING (IW, 5/31/93, pg. 10) HP, IBM, Microsoft, and Novell pledged to work together to establish and support open standards for network printing management. Specifically, the four agreed to back the SNMP standard for managing peripherals on a LAN. 605. ** HP's DATA WAREHOUSING TOOLS. A FULL-SERVICE MOVER (IW, 5/31/93, PG. 24) HP doesn't just want to rightsize your company's computing architecture, it wants to shrink the number of suppliers you'll need to tackle the job of moving data off the mainframe and other legacy systems onto distributed platforms. OpenWarehouse is a selection of tools from HP and a number of third-party vendors that give users a single source of products, as well as a suite of consulting services, for implementing distributed data repositories in a client-server environment. 606. ** BANK EASES DATA ACCESS (CW, 5/31/93, pg. 4) Mellon Bank Corp's Financial Institutions Outsourcing (FIO) Group is poised to unveil a client/server system aimed at dispersing highly targeted information across a bank's entire organization. The rollout is proceeding despite the imminent sale of the group's corporate parent, Mellon Information Systems, to an unknown bidder. HP will bring its HP 9000 Unix workstations: Oracle will supply the database engine; and Powersoft will give the development tools. 607. ** HP WENT THAT ARRAY (IW, 5/31/93, pg. 86) HP has joined the club of companies selling disk arrays for the multivendor server market. The new HP Disk Array supports EISA-based LAN servers from vendors such as Compaq, Dell, and AST, as well as HP's own Vectra systems. *********************************************************** IBM ARTICLES *********************************************************** 608. ** CLIENT-SERVER (IW, 5/31/93, pg. 8) At Client/Server World in Boston on June 14, IBM will discuss what it has already discussed with 175 of its largest customers. Through extensive research on early implementers of client-server technology, Big Blue has isolated about eight typical designs that customers use when moving down form the mainframe or up from the LAN. Those designs will now become key elements in IBM's overall client-server strategy. 609. ** IBM's NEW CHAIRMAN BUYS 1,500 SHARES OF COMMON (WSJ, 6/7/93, pg. A6) Analyst remain gloomy about IBM's prospects, with many predicting the company will break-even or post its third straight loss in 1993. IBM said repeatedly it intends to review its $2.16 annual dividend, and several analysts expect IBM to cut it this year. 610. ** IBM FORGING 10K-TERABYTE RS/6000 STORAGE LINK (EN, 5/31/93, pg. 4) IBM and E-Systems agreed to develop a link between the RS/6000 RISC workstation line and a high-capacity helical scan digital tape storage subsystem. The link, allowing workstation access to as much as 10,000 terabytes of data, represents a major expansion of the market for E-Systems. 611. ** NETWORKING (IW, 5/31/93, pg. 10) IBM filled a major gap in its Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking strategy by extending APPN technology to the mainframe. The mainframe now effectively becomes a peer on the network, allowing users to integrate local and wide area networks within a single APPN infrastructure. 612. ** NT CROWNED? IBM RISES TO OBJECT (IW, 5/31/93, pg. 14) IBM's technology is impressive. Known as SOM, for System Object Model, it lets an application written for one computing platform work with an application on another platform, sharing objects such as spreadsheets, sound bites or video clips. By using SOM, an application written today for OS/2 will be portable to AIX and later to Taligent. *********************************************************** MICROSOFT ARTICLES *********************************************************** 613. ** NT ERA DAWNS (IW, 5/31/93, pg. 14) Microsoft introduced Windows NT, its multiprocessing 32-bit operating system. Full scale production of the desktop version is set to begin within 50 days. The server edition is scheduled to appear 30 days after that. Microsoft maintains that the next version of NT will be the object-oriented system known as Cairo and will be ready in 1995. 614. ** MICROSOFT OFFERS SOFTWARE TO LINK OFFICE MACHINES (WSJ, 6/9/93, pg. B1) Microsoft introduced software that provides a common language for office equipment. Dozens of office-equipment companies, including HP, have pledged to use the software, which allows photocopiers faxes, phones and other machines to talk to each other. *********************************************************** NCR ARTICLES *********************************************************** 615. ** NCR PUSHES 3700 MPP BETAS INTO 1994 (EN, 5/31/93, pg. 13) NCR pushed back the shipment schedule on its Pentium-based 3700 commercial massively parallel processor by up to a year and is repositioning its smaller-scale 3600 parallel system upwards to take up some of the slack. 616. ** NCR DEVELOPING DISTRIBUTED OBJECT TECHNOLOGY (NC, 6/93, pg. 7) NCR is developing Cobra-compliant distributed object management services technology. The new technology will simplify how network services such as directories, security or communications are accessed by diverse applications and will operate within the Novell NetWare environment. *********************************************************** SGI ARTICLES *********************************************************** 617. ** THE ANTENNA. A RISC FOR NEXT? The growing roster of system vendors bundling Next Computer's NextStep operating software could soon include Silicon Graphics. *********************************************************** OTHER *********************************************************** 618. ** BIG DATABASES, SMALL PLATFORMS: MEAD MIGRATES TO UNIX (CC, 6/93, pg. 30) Who says you need mainframes for big databases? During the next four years Mead plans to migrate all of its operation, including its huge Lexis and Nexis database search-and-retrieval services, from mainframes to Unix- based platforms from HP, NCR, and Sun. The company estimates that the move off mainframes will save Mead 15 to 20 percent annually in processing expenses. 619. ** OUTSOURCING: OPINION IS DIVIDED (BC, 6/93, pg. 10) Almost half of 200 CIOs responding to a recent survey said they are currently using or evaluating outsourcing, while a little more half of the respondents have rejected outsourcing as a solution. 920. ** DATA TOPICS (EN, 5/31/93, pg. 13) Unisys reportedly is the partner that Intel's supercomputer systems division has signed on to market a Pentium-based massively parallel processor. 621. ** DATA TOPICS (EN, 5/31/93, pg. 13) A delayed new release of Stratus Computer's FTX Unix derivative with support for symmetric multiprocessing is in beta test with general availability said to be imminent. FTX version 2.2 was supposed to be ready in late 1992, but it's taken longer than expected to get the multiprocessing capabilities nailed down. ** END OF DOCUMNET **