DEC has said that there will be new VAXstations announced over the next six months or so, and it is cutting prices on its VAXstation-3100 models in preparation for the new equipment. Electronic News says that cuts of up to 29% are also an attempt to put 3100 pricing on par with the company’s Unix-based RISC machines and offerings from competitors like Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems. DEC acknowledges that the 3100 has been overpriced compared with the already reduced RISC series, and says that wants to achieve parity that users can make a choice on technology and software rather than cost. It is still unclear what sort of performance users can expect from the upcoming machines, but analysts are betting on either a 7 MIPS or an 11 MIPS model, possibly as early as September.
