Compagnie des Machines Bull SA’s Open Enterprise Systems division is attacking the medium-sized business market with the launch of a new entry-level Escala Powercluster, the P2204-T, comprising two nodes of two ways each. The new model is based on Bull’s mini tower, claimed to be compact Symmetrical MultiProcessing SMP technology. It means that the Powercluster range now starts at around $88,000 including hardware, IBM Corp’s AIX operating system, High Availability Subsystem HAS and Common Resource Management CRM software. The Powercluster is said to scale up to eight nodes. Bull also launched some additions to its Sagister ‘Unix production system’ bundles of hardware and software. ERP/Sage is said to be an SAP AG-ready implementation package – packages for other Enterprise Resource Planning products are said to be on the way. Web/Sage is supposed to bring mainframe users Web access facilities for transaction processing applications. Finally Seven/Sage gives GCOS7 mainframe users a migration path to Sagister. Meanwhile Bull says it has already sold two of its new Artemis DPS 7000/MT CMOS-based mainframes (CI No 3,140) and ‘about 5’ of its Jupiter DPS 9000/700’s to a mixture of UK local government, finance and manufacturing companies.
