In a stunning about face, NEC Corp yesterday abandoned the high-end R-series RISC-based servers it has been developing and decided to cut its losses and adopt the market-leading Hewlett-Packard Co machines, primarily in Japan. As a face-saver, it will join Hewlett-Packard on developing and manufacturing next-generation large servers, bringing to the party its mainframe technology. Reason for the sudden about-turn on NEC’s part is that its mainframe base in Japan is clearly defecting to client-server computing at a faster rate than the company anticipated, and it can’t afford to wait for its own developers to come up with the goods. The agreement benefits Hewlett-Packard because its own marketing operations in Japan are limited, but Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard will continue to market the servers too. NEC says it hopes to sell 300 of the current HP 9000 Series 800 servers worth over $100m over the next three years. NEC will stand by and continue to enhance its current mid-range NEC 4800 Series of R-series RISC-based Unix servers, and plans to convert Helett-Packard’s HP OpenView system, network and application management software for the NEC 4800 Series, and will put some of its own software up on the HP 9000s. The pact underlines the folly of al lowing politicians to interfere in the running of computer companies: NEC’s strategic European partner Compagnie des Machines Bull SA was seeking a second foreign investor and partner three years ago and IBM Corp and Hewlett-Packard were presented as the alternatives. Bull favoured Hewlett as its investing partner, but Premiere Edith Cresson insisted on IBM, and President Miterrand backed his Prime Minister.
