Tandem Computers Inc’s bold strategy of replacing its proprietary machines with MIPS Technologies Inc RISC-based models delivering more power at much lower prices seems to be paying off: founder and chief executive Jim Treybig tells Dow Jones & Co that the company expects to beat analysts’ expectations for fourth-quarter revenue and earnings with sales of around $600m rather than $575m, and profits better than the consensus estimate of $63m or 55 cents per share – that would compare with $3.2m on sales of $553.8m a year ago; Tandem actually sold out of its large computer systems for the first time in its 20-year history during the quarter and orders for high-end computers jumped to 660 processors for the quarter, up 17.6% from 561 in the fiscal third quarter; orders for the low-end K1000s topped 1,000 processors for the quarter, up 37% on the previous quarter – and early next year the company plans to remake the product line all over again with cheaper, more powerful versions of its Integrity server and its K100, K1000 and K10000 systems; in the summer, it will ship a new mid-range Unix computer.
