Sources claim that Digital Equipment Corp has settled the prices for the Alpha RISC machines it launches this Tuesday: $15,000 for the Sandpiper desktop and $18,000 for the server version; $39,000 for Flamingo; $70,000 to $200,000 for Cobra; and $150,000 to $600,000 for Ruby. Availability is said to be within 60 days of launch. DEC watcher Terry Shannon says Lasers will go from the initial maximum of four CPUs to six in the nearterm future to deliver a projected 900 SPECmarks total performance, a six-fold increase over the top-of-the-line VAX 7000 Model 640. He’s also figuring that DEC has an unannounced modular computing initiative that will ultimately see the Laser top out at 12 RISC processors or more.
Windows NT
DEC, he adds, has confirmed that more than 800 Alpha AXP seed systems are out with independent software vendors (we heard 500 elsewhere) and that 2,500 systems, including at least 100 Cobra systems, will be in the field by the end of the year. Leaks from inside DEC say that OpenVMS runs a lot better on the Alpha systems than OSF/1 does – wouldn’t you just know it. Other words from the inside have DEC trundling off to Comdex in Las Vegas next week with a bunch of Alpha AXP Personal Computers for a technology demonstration of Microsoft Corp’s forthcoming Windows NT operating system, with third-party and DEC’s own applications. It claims to be ahead of schedule with NT-on-Alpha, a relatively meaningless phrase since we don’t know what the original schedule was. DEC also says that it is considering making the machines available to independent software vendors. Elsewhere, word is that the Alpha RISC chips are now in volume production, as are some of the Alpha machines.
