To try to cater for a market that is becoming more and more mished up, ICL Plc has merged its personal systems and mid-range divisions into a new client-server systems organisation (CI No 2,199). According to managing director David Mills there are several reasons for this unprecedented move. Even after putting all the hype surrounding client-server technology into perspective, the downsizing trend is unstoppable. Rather than having information centralised on a mainframe or isolated in a stand-alone personal computer, customers increasingly want a way of sharing information at all levels of their organisation to enhance productivity. This translates into a need for better linking between the often multifarious machines they use at desktop level. As a result, when buying new kit, many people are demanding personal computer clients that can be easily integrated with mid-range servers, such as Unix.
Re-integrate
But the huge range of hardware and software on the market has made it very confusing for customers to know what to buy, from whom, and why. Their integration problems are also not made any easier by vendors that, on the whole, specialise in certain areas. Personal computer companies – such as Compaq Computer Corp – says Mills, usually have little mid-range business, and mid-range companies – such as Hewlett-Packard Co – have little or no personal computer business, although Hewlett is trying very hard to do something about that. ICL, on the other hand, he says, is ranked number six in the European personal computer arena and the number one Unix supplier in the UK – so it has expertise in both areas. Furthermore, acting as individual units, personal systems and mid-range found they were experiencing increasing overlap when pitching our wares. But says Mills, We weren’t leveraging each other’s strength. The new division, therefore, is intended both to re-integrate the two strands of business, and send a very clear message to the market that ICL is providing a complete range of client-server offerings. It will present the group with a unique opportunity [to exploit the market] that other companies would like to possess, and will give us the ability to beat our competitors. In fact, Mills says, it is the only way ICL could hope to maintain the 73% growth in volume sales of Unix machines last year, and the 32% growth in personal computers. But he says each must be able to exist as a stand-alone business. They will sell personal computers or mid-range systems separately if that is what customers want, but they will also work together to offer an integrated mix. And a mix not just of their own products – they will also undertake systems integration work if required. On the mid-range side, the division will offer both iAPX-86 and Sparc-based servers. While Unix will remain the number one offering because that is where the main growth is, Mills is hedging his bets. He will also sell Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT when that becomes available.
By Catherine Everett
We hope to sell a truckload of NT, but a truck load of Unix as well, he said, although he doesn’t expect NT really to take off for another three years or so – it is, he said, a complete re-write and that was how long it took for the original Windows to catch on. In an applications-driven market though, he says, the ultimate victory of either operating system will be decided by what applications are made available. And it is the applications issue that has pushed Fujitsu Ltd, Amdahl Corp 42%-owned by Fujitsu – and ICL – 80%-owned by Fujitsu – together to pool their Unix resources (CI No 2,177). Basically, vice-president of systems development at the new division Peter Stuart said, while Amdahl is extending its mainframes into the lower end of the market, ICL is pushing its mid-range systems up to meet them. Fujitsu, conversely, does everything, except that it does it in Japan. The aim, therefore, is, via cross-licensing agreements, to take elements of all the various Unix operating systems and create a single binary-compatible one that
runs equally well across all environments. This will mean that applications developers need develop only one set of packages to work on all systems. The move will not only save on duplicated development costs, it will also enable a faster time-to-market, and at the same time open up the installed base of each firm to the others. While it might seem that ICL, with its much broader base of Unix knowledge, will be contributing most to the venture, Stuart said the partnership, with Amdahl in particular, would boost its presence in the US market, making it more attractive to the wealth of software developers there.
BS 2000
As for ICL’s agreement with Pyramid Technology Corp to license its three-schema, symmetric multiprocessor R-bus architecture (CI No 2,087), Stuart says it will be not be used in a massively parallel server as originally thought. It will rather be incorporated into a Sparc-based machine to make it run faster. The product could be available as soon as the end of this year, although Stuart would not be drawn on that. The move between the three companies within the Fujitsu camp mirrors the major agreement that Fujitsu has made with Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG in mainframes, where the Japanese and the German companies are pooling their development resources completely so that for the next generation, Siemens will supply all Fujitsu’s mid-range mainframes while Fujitsu will manufacture a larger proportion of Siemens’ total mainframe line – it already supplies the top-end machines to be microcoded with the instruction set necessary to run BS 2000. With the uphill struggle that Amdahl is facing in the mainframe market, it would make a great deal of sense for the Sunnyvale company – which designs its own mainframes to be fabricated using Fujitsu’s chip technology – to join the Fujitsu-Siemens partnership, sharing the development costs between three rather than two companies, but there is no indication of that happening as yet.
