Adaptec Inc is hedging its bets about what will triumph as a common standard for next generation I/O architecture. Major industry players have been clashing over what is to become the standard since January. There’s no sign of peace breaking out anytime soon, says new Adaptec CEO Bob Stephens, who has decided to back both sides of the conflict. Adaptec has allied itself with Intel Corp, which supports the Next Generation Input/Output (NGIO) standard. And it it has lined up with Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM Corp and Compaq Computer Corp, as one of the four named sponsors of the Future I/O architecture. Stephens says Adaptec’s preferred result will be a convergence of the two standards.
Stephens, who took over from Larry Boucher, interim CEO and founder early this month, is celebrating a return to financial health with the company’s third quarter figures. He claims that the firm plans to concentrate more on the attendant software that it ships with its products. For instance, Stephens said, the Ultra 160M SCSI due to ship this summer, will contain validation software that polls every device on the SCSI bus to check that they are running at full speed.
