Fujitsu Ltd is in as much trouble in mainframes as is Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG these days, and so in an effort to cut costs, the two firms have expanded their collaboration under which Fujitsu has built Siemens’ top-end mainframe models for some time. Under the new agreement, which is still at the letter of intent stage, Fujitsu will source its smaller CMOS mainframes from Siemens while Fujitsu will supply new top-end machines from 1996. The collaboration is possible because although Siemens’ machines are not IBM-compatible, they use basic 370 architecture, so that with the appropriate instruction set microcoded in and a few design tweaks, they can be made IBM-compatible. Separately, Siemens Nixdorf said that sales so far this fiscal year – which ends September 30 – are about 5% down on last year, despite a big rise in personal computer shipments.
