Unisys Corp has decided to follow AT&T Co’s NCR Corp in standardising its Unix machines and personal computers on the Intel Corp iAPX-86 family, and has also revived its moribund OEM agreement with Sequent Computer Systems Corp, taking Sequent’s iAPX-86-based Symmetry multiprocessors as its top-end U 6000 series machines. The move is a disappointment for Motorola Inc Unisys had been flirting with using the 88000 RISC and has a machine that uses it out in Japan. By making the commitment, it has won a privileged relationship with Intel, which will listen to Unisys’ input on architectures for future members of the family, and will give the company early access to its forthcoming designs. Unisys and Intel will mutually support key areas of interest in software development, such as advanced implementations of Unix System V.4, the Intel Application Binary Interface standards activities, advanced distributed software and multiprocessor hardware implementations. The 1989 agreement with Sequent is extended until January 1994: it was a three-year pact with two optional one-year extensions.
