Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG will expand its entry-level Unix machines at the low end by introducing a new RW client machine based on MIPS Technologies Inc’s Orion R4600 chip at next month’s CeBit Hannover Fair. The firm’s existing range of high-end RW clients are taken OEM from Silicon Graphics Inc, although it developed the RM server family itself. The RW200 is essentially a personal computer with an R-series motherboard slotted in, and will cost about $6,250. It is said to be the first member of a new family that includes boxes based on the R4460, and a R4400-based multiprocessor is expected to follow later this year. An unnamed machine, which incorporates four R4400s linked by a simple silicon bus, is under development at the moment. Although these machines will initially run Siemens Nixdorf’s Sinix implementation of Unix System V.4, the company is said to be investigating the possibility of selling Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT on the RW200 via indirect channels in Europe, positioning it initially as a client product. Siemens Nixdorf also says it will launch its 24-way RM 600 at CeBit in March: it claims the machine has a TPC/B benchmark rating of 1,600. And at the high end, the firm declares it will start offering the massively parallel Unix systems it is developing with Pyramid Technology Inc by 1995. These, like the company’s mainframes, will comprise clustered arrays of tightly coupled multiprocessor nodes, and be able to do about 1,500 transactions per second.
