Power Tools 1993 October

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Wrap

Text File | 1993-05-17 | 18KB | 358 lines

DEC ALPHA WORKSTATION ANNOUNCEMENT SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ANNOUNCEMENT SUMMARY On Tuesday, April 20, Digital Equipment Corporation announced the addition of three new models to the DEC Alpha AXP Series 3000 workstation line, all of them aimed at "Developers, Technical and Scientific, CAD, and Database"; the new workstations are: Model 300L "Fastest Workstation under $5K" Model 300 "Best price/performance workstation" "Fastest Workstation under $10K Model 500X "World's Fastest Workstation" Digital also announced the following: - Three new graphics packages: DEC PHIGS; DEC GKS Version 5.1; DECOpen3D Version 1.0 - Workstation Farms (DEC's answer to HP clusters) - R4000 daughter-card upgrades for DECstations that more than double the performance of the previous systems (MIPs upgrade) - Price reduction on the Model 500 (from $38,995 to $32,995) - Alpha Companion Program: X Windows Terminals with Alpha - Kubota Pacific Computer, Inc.'s Denali family of graphic subsystems for the Alpha workstations ANNOUNCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS * The Model 300L configuration at $4,995 is a 100-MHz, diskless, nondiscountable 2-D desktop with a 17" grayscale monitor, 32 MB of RAM, and no I/O slots. The same configuration but with a 16" color monitor is $6,495. * The Model 300 configuration priced at $9,695 is a 150-MHz, nondiscountable 2-D desktop with a 426-MB disk, a 19" grayscale monitor, 32 MB of RAM, and 2 TURBOchannel I/O slots. The same configuration but with a 16" color monitor is $9,995. * The entry-level configuration of the Model 500X is $69,995. This is a 200-MHz, 8-plane 2-D, discountable deskside with a 3-GB disk, a 19" color monitor, 96 MB of RAM, and 5 TURBOchannel slots. * All new models are currently available for shipping with either OpenVMS or DEC OSF/1 AXP. BOX ANALYSIS Alpha Models 300L, 300, and 500X at a glance--a quick comparison with the HP Models 715/33, 715/50, and 735 and 755: _____________________________________________________________________ |Company |DEC |HP |DEC |HP |DEC 3000 |HP | |Series |3000 |9000 |3000 |9000 |3000 |9000 | |Model(s) |300L |715/33 |300 |715/50 |500X |735 & 755| |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |Package |Desktop |Desktop |Desktop |Desktop |Deskside |Desktop/ | | | | | | | |Deskside | |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |Speed: | | | | | | | |SPECfp92 | 63.6 | 45.0 | 91.5 | 71.8 | 164.1 | 150.6 | |SPECint92 | 45.9 | 24.2 | 66.2 | 37.1 | 110.9 | 80.0 | |SPECmark89 | 59.8 | 45.9 | 85.5 | 69.0 | 160.8 | 146.8 | |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |AIM specs: | | | | | | | |Perf Rating| 42.0 | 21.8 | 58.7 | 33.7 | 110.4 | 71.7 | |Mx usr load| 216 | 143 | 225 | 252 | 805 |422 / 580| |Mx thruput | 411.7 | 214.0 | 575.5 | 330.0 | 1082.4 | 703.1 | |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |Design: |AlphaAXP|PA RISC |AlphaAXP|PA RISC |AlphaAXP |PA RISC | |Processor | 21064 | 7100 | 21064 | 7100 | 21064 | 7100 | |Clock rate |100 MHz | 33 MHz |150 MHz | 50 MHz | 200 MHz | 99 MHz | |I/O Slots | 0 |1 EISA* |2 TURBO | 1 EISA | 5 TURBO |1 EISA / | | | | | | | |4 EISA | |Bus speeds | none |32 MB/s | 50 MB/s|32 MB/s | 100 MB/s |32 MB/s | |SCSI types |std II |std II | std II | std II | std II | std II &| | | | | | | |fast-wide| |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |Config: | | | | | | | |RAM min/max|32/64 MB|16/256MB|32/64 MB|16/256MB| 32/256 MB|32/400 MB| | | | | | | |64/768MB | |Int Disk mx| 2.1 GB | 2 GB | 2.1 GB | 2 GB | 4.2 GB | 2 GB /| | | | | | | | 4 GB | |Ext Disk mx| 7.35 GB|66.6 GB | 11.6 GB|66.6 GB | 11.6 GB |126.4GB /| | | | | | | |297.5 GB | |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |Audio Qlty:| voice | CD | voice | CD | voice | CD | |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |$ base/cnf:| | | | ++| | | |Entry gray |$4,995 |$7,190++|$9,695 |$13,390 |not avail |$54,240 /| | | |($5,033)| |($9,373)| |not avail| |Entry color|$6,495 |$8,190++|$9,995 |15,490++| $69,995 |$56,840 /| | | |($5,733)| |(10,843)| |$70,740 | |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| |Graphics: |2-D only|3-D* |3-D** + |3-D* |3-D** | 3-D* | |___________|________|________|________|________|__________|_________| | * = Optional ** = PXG or Kubota | | | | + Not clear from information available on 4/20 what 3-D | | options are available on Model 300; some may require 3 slots | | | | ++ The 300s are not discountable, and the 715s are! Figures in | | parentheses are prices of 715s with a 30% discount applied. | |____________________________________________________________________| X-TERMINAL BUNDLING ANALYSIS Alpha Companion Program at a glance--a quick comparison with the HP Workgroup Solutions: _____________________________________________________________________ | Digital + || HP + | |________________________________||__________________________________| |Wkstn Model| Monitor | $/Seat || Wkstn Model | Monitor | $/Seat | |___________|___________|________||____________ |__________ |________| | 300L | 15" color $3,833 || 715/33 | 15" color | $3,945 | | 300 | 17" color | $5,867 || 715/50 | 17" color | $5,958 | | 300 | 19" color | $7,167 || only 19" offered is Sony | | 300 | 19" color | $7,833 || 715/50 | 19" color | $7,212 | | | (Sony) | || | (Sony) | | | | | || | | | | none | | || 715/33 | 19" gray | $4,858 | |___________|___________|________||_____________|___________|________| |+ All bundles consist of 1 workstation and 2 X-terminals. | | All bundles include 32 MB of RAM, a 1-GB disk, and a CD-ROM drive.| |____________________________________________________________________| Announcement Strengths ====================== + Excellent price, performance, and price/performance (but note that the 300s are not discountable) + The 300L and 300 fill the low-end holes that existed in the Alpha product line; the 500X fills the high-end hole + Analysts are calling the 500X the new "hot box" + Customer-focused VAX-to-Alpha upgrade strategy Announcement Weaknesses ===================== -- Uncertain Financial Position and Weakening Market Position-- Digital is a company fighting for survival, throwing all its resources at Alpha in a desperate attempt to gain back its lost market share. Digital's market position is expected to remain shaky through at least 1994, due to management changes and ongoing restructuring, and its heavy reliance on the acceptance of OSF/1 and Alpha. On March 29, 1993, Business Week reported that so far "Digital has signed few big buyers". And Gartner Group says there is lots of confusion in the field among Digital's sales reps, indirect channels, and customers. Meanwhile, HP has replaced Digital as the No. 2 player in the midrange computer industry! HP did exceptionally well in 1992, with a revenue growth of 13%. HP's 5-year compounded annual growth rate was in excess of 44% in both revenue and units shipped (the market-wide average increase was only 20%). Based on sales for the first 2 quarters, HP's 1993 revenue gain should be even greater. And VARBusiness rated HP #1 for our strong relationship with our indirect channels. -- Applications Not Yet Available in Quantity -- Analysts agree that one of the primary keys to Digital's future success is getting applications onto Alpha quickly, especially applications that run on DEC OSF/1. Yet Alpha application availability is still a major weak spot for Digital. There are only about 550 applications running on Alpha today. 100 of these run OSF/1; 50 are Digital layered software products. Even applications currently running on the Ultrix/R3000 or VMS must be modified at the source code and recompiled and requalified to run on DEC OSF/1 or OpenVMS. It typically takes a year from the time a new platform becomes relatively stable until code is available to end users. Consequently, many crucial applications won't be available until at least the end of 1993. HP has over 5,000 applications available on the HP 9000 family; 3,200 of them run on the Series 700. -- New, Unproven Alpha Architecture - Alpha is a brand new architecture, with all the bugs that accompany any new architecture. Gartner Group says that so far they don't know of any Alpha systems that are running in production environments. PA RISC, on the other hand, is a robust, state-of-the-art architecture; the 7 in PA 7100 stands for 7th generation PA RISC! Alpha's performance depends heavily on compiler performance, and Digital's compiler performance is still unproven. HP is strong in compiler technology. We have been increasing PA RISC performance by 60% each year. Gartner Group says HP is "well poised for compute-intensive performance." The 200-MHz Alpha chip sounds more powerful than it is. Alpha's clock speeds often do not translate into real-life application performance. Digital talks a lot about Alpha's on-chip cache. Alpha relies on on-chip cache to keep its clock rate up. The PA 7100 chip can access its external cache at the same frequency used by the processor. But on-chip cache actually slows down applications unless the application can hit the on-chip cache most of the time, because it takes longer to get to external cache. And Alpha's off-chip cache runs at a maximum of approximately 66.7 MHz, about the same as that of the PA 7100. Digital also talks a lot about Alpha being the only full 64-bit architecture, but PA RISC is also 64-bit. HP's current products provide 64-bit segmented addressing. Broad acceptance of 64-bit standards is years away; a broad base of 64-bit compatible applications is not expected until the end of the decade. The first enhanced PA RISC 64-bit systems will appear at the middle of the decade, well before 64-bit computing becomes a broad market requirement. By moving too quickly to offer 64-bit systems, Digital is burdening customers with additional complexity and cost with no offsetting benefit. A Datamation analysis of Alpha (March 1, 1993) puts it like this : "HP's PA-RISC technology can ... easily make the transition to full 64-bit computing when the market justifies the move." -- Weak, Confused OS strategy -- Digital's latest announced OS strategy is to offer a choice of three operating environments (OpenVMS AXP, DEC OSF/1 AXP, and Windows NT) on the entire Alpha line. However, it is highly unlikely that application developers (including Digital) have the resources to port, test, and maintain their applications on all three Alpha platforms. For that matter, it is unlikely that Digital has the resources required to maintain three operating environments over the long term. Digital will eventually have to make some strategic decisions as to what applications will run on what operating systems. NT is Digital's long-term OS strategy. Digital is counting on NT to ensure Alpha's success in the commercial marketplace. However, NT's success is far from certain; NT won't even be announced until late spring (the latest rumor is May 24). NT is not currently capable of handling 64 bits. And, according to an Article in the March 1 edition of Datamation, "Digital has not decided which Alpha workstations and servers will support NT." (one example of their confused OS strategy) OpenVMS is a proprietary OS that pays lip service to openness. It is Digital's short-term strategy for migrating its VAX installed base. OpenVMS is not currently capable of handling 64 bits, either. DEC OSF/1 is Digital's short-term strategy for keeping its technical base. Digital will find it hard to convince users to buy into OSF/1 because it is still an unstable OS, because Digital is the only vendor committed to it, and because Digital's UNIX strategy has changed so often. Analysts suggest that Digital went to OSF/1 out of desperation, because Ultrix is deficient. Digital has no current plan to offer OSF/1 on its larger systems, and will not have SMP support for OSF/1 for quite some time. To quote the March 1 Datamation article, "OSF/1's success is far from assured" (OSF/1 can handle 64 bits.) Here is a recent example of Digital's confused UNIX strategy: At the same time that Digital customers were being assured by Digital's Detroit sales reps that Digital would definitely port OSF/1 to MIPS, Digital's UNIX spokesman, Robert Price, was announcing that OSF/1 definitely wouldn't be ported to MIPS. And this was the second time Digital had reversed its position on this matter. (Digital News and Review, 4/5/93, p.3) HP has a clear OS strategy with HP-UX. HP-UX is a mature, robust, proven operating environment, with the functionality required in a real-life working environment. For customers who want to implement OSF standards, HP-UX is a good choice: all the OSF DCE and DME elements are implemented on the HP platform today, as are the proposed COSE features. -- Weak Graphics Options-- Digital's graphics have been losing their competitive edge recently, which explains why they resorted to a third party--Kubota Pacific-- to supply them with a high-end 3-D graphics solution and an alternative mid-range 3-D solution. Kubota systems must be purchased directly through Kubota; Digital representatives can only market them. And Kubota is not a qualified distributor for most major accounts, including U.S. government accounts. The Kubota systems are fairly well integrated with Alpha, but coordinating performance is still difficult and time consuming. HP leads the industry in mainstream graphics with the CRX 24Z, and has a very strong graphics story at all levels (except the virtual reality niche at the very high end). And HP offers 3-D graphics even on the 715/33. -- Alpha Workstation Farms vs. HP/Convex Clusters -- - Alpha farms are made up of Alpha 500X AXPs, which cost twice as much as HP 735 cluster modules and deliver only comparable performance. - Alpha farms use standard networks only; HP clusters use standard networks AND higher-speed proprietary networks from Convex. - Alpha farms use only public domain software; HP clusters use public domain software, plus HP TaskBroker, plus third party software packages like Linda and Isis, plus Convex supercomputing software ConvexPVM, ConvexNQS+ and MILIB. - Digital offers no growth path to higher performance supercomputers, since Alpha farms will not be compatible with Cray MPP machines using Alpha chips. HP, with Convex, has a growth path to MPP supercomputers that will be compatible with clusters of PA RISC workstations running today. - Digital has one High Performance Computing Expertise Center (HPCEC). HP has cluster labs in Ft. COllins, Boblingen (Germany) and with Convex in Richardson, TX and Utrecht, Holland. -- Relatively Weak Desktop-to-Datacenter Story -- On paper the Alpha product line looks quite good now. However, the Series 10000 is shipping only with OpenVMS (and only in single-processor configurations); and none of the high-end Alpha servers are shipping in quantity. One reason for this is that the 10000 lacks SMP support for OpenVMS (coming soon, Digital promises) and for OSF/1 (no SMP support for OSF/1 until at least the end of 1993, probably later). Another reason is that the performance of the 10000 is so poor, compared to the Series 7000, that no one will pay the extra cost for a 10000. And there's the question of how much more speed Digital can get from the Alpha compiler. They had to fine-tune it to get the power they now have. It will probably take 12 to 18 months more to make it suitable for complex environments. Gartner says that PA RISC has the best commercial performance in the industry. This opinion is based on our ability to enhance performance by 60% each year. IN SUMMARY * The latest Alpha workstations fill the gaps at the low and high ends of Digital's Alpha workstation product line, and offer higher performance and price/performance than the equivalent Series 700s. * Dealing with Digital is risky: Alpha is an new, unproven architecture; OSF/1 and NT are new, unproven operating systems; Digital's financial situation is shaky, and it's entire business structure is in a state of turmoil and change. * Digital is focusing all its resources on speed and performance, rather than taking the wholistic approach that would ensure a high-quality system overall. * Alpha still offers few applications, no native high-end graphics, and no integrated multimedia. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Author: Dorothy Coe, WSG Outbound Marketing