Digital Equipment Corp reckons that it really is finally on its way back with its new AlphaServer 8400 and 8200, using 300MHz and 266MHz iterations of its fastest 64-bit chip, the Alpha 21164. DEC claims that running Oracle7 optimised for the 64-bit architecture with large in-memory option, the boxes leave IBM Corp mainframes in the dust – yet cost only a fraction as much. Chief executive Robert Palmer bills the announcement the most important since he took over two years ago. He says DEC already has 75 orders for the new machines, first models of which begin shipping next month. Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle Corp, is excited enough about the combination of his software and the DEC hardware to describe the machines as the first Unix co mputer that is faster and more reliable than a mainframe, citing one customer that benchmarked IBM Corp’s DB2 on a $20m IBMulator against Oracle7 on a $1m AlphaServer and found that one application that took nine hours on the mainframe took 30 minutes on the AlphaServer. The 8400 starts at $195,000 with one CPU; it goes to 12 processors in maximum configuration; the 8200 starts at $100,000.
