Compaq Computer Corp’s Tandem Computer acquisition, is keen to assure the world and Europe in particular of the combined companies’ continued commitment to the telecommunications market with the opening of a European telecoms Center, the European launch of Wireless Location Services, and European availability of Integrity XC, the company’s first implementation of its non-stop clusters for Santa Cruz Operation’s Unixware. Telecoms has long been one of Tandem’s key vertical markets for its high-availability fault-tolerant non-stop systems. It currently represents around 45% of the company’s worldwide revenue and 30% of its European revenue. It is also the fastest-growing sector for Tandem. The company therefore seems particularly keen to reassure its telecoms customers that its new parent is equally committed to the future development of this sector and claims Compaq has brought not only an end-to-end hardware offering to the table from palmtop to nonstop, but in particular its robust Intel-based servers which form the basis for the Integrity XC and future Tandem telco offerings. The new European center is located in a tree-lined hillside business park in Sophia and Antipolis, between Nice and Cannes on the French Riviera. The exotic location is no accident, since Tandem is hoping to attract the ‘best in class’ engineers, sales and marketing professionals to work in a center that will provide both a development center and showcase for customers. We wanted to consolidate all our expertise in one place to enable customers to come and test applications, see demonstrations and work with the company on the development of products, says Alan Willis, Tandem’s managing director of European telecoms sales.
Aims to be number three
Wireless Location Services are add-on applications that can be built around existing wireless networks to enable carriers to both keep existing customers and attract new ones, thereby optimizing their network investment. Tandem have partnered with Bolder, Colorado-based Signalsoft Inc, a two-year-old provider of an engine and applications that enable collection of location data from cellphones and the use of that data in applications. Signalsoft collects the location data, and makes it available through APIs to applications such as roadside emergency locations and vehicle fleet tracking. Signalsoft both provides these applications and makes its APIs available to third-party application developers. The Wireless Location Services run on Tandem’s Himalaya Intelligent Network servers. In Europe, Tandem will also provide sales and support for the services. Tandem Integrity XC uses the company’s non-stop clusters or SCO Unixware and is available on Compaq ProLiant servers. It is available up to six nodes at present, and claims to deliver ten times the availability of other high-availability systems from the likes of Sun and Hewlett-Packard at half the price. It offers a single system image and true high-availability where if one node fails the rest of the cluster takes over. The bench level two-node system with Compaq ProLiant 850R servers cost around $50,000 and will ship in Europe in March. Willis says the new Compaq aims to be the number three global computing company by 2000, and telecoms is an important part of that strategy.
