Alliance between Microsoft and DEC looks like a declaration of all-out war on Unix…
Digital Equipment Corp and Microsoft Corp, neither of which could ever be accused of being the least bit friendly to Unix, look for all the world like they’re ganging up to try and kill it off once and for all, using Microsoft’s Windows New Technology operating system on DEC’s Alpha RISC as the blunt instrument. The long-awaited announcement that the implementation was going ahead was finally made last Friday, right before DECWorld ’92 opens this week in Boston. The software is expected to be deliverable by the end of 1992 or the beginning of 1993. The announcement managed to elevate the NT import to the level of a strategic operating system for DEC, which is embracing it as a corporate solution, language rarely heard from DEC’s mouth unless it’s talking about VAX/VMS. It has also pledged the pair to establishing NT-on-Alpha as a premier RISC-based system and has them promising machines that could fundamentally change the face of computing as we know it. Both companies contend that their relationship is different from all the other strategic alliances and partnerships that are the rage in the industry, being distinguished by, among other things, shared perspective and growth path into the next century. The limelight cast on Microsoft Corp’s Windows New Technology operating system for the Alpha RISC and the number of adjectives spent on it last week is expected to have a negative, if not fatal impact on the rickety Advanced Computing Environment Initiative, whose founders, including Compaq Computer Corp and Santa Cruz Operation Inc, are perceived to be abandoning it for greener pastures, despite claims to the contrary. DEC, which continues to maintain an official fidelity to ACE, at least in the short term when MIPS Computer Systems Inc RISC boxes are all it can deliver, last week also cast Alpha as an evolution to ACE. It says it is in discussions with its ACE partners about Alpha, but continues to hesitate to offer it formally as still another hardware environment for ACE to absorb. DEC and Microsoft said that they expect NT-on-Alpha, which they are jointly engineering, to be a high-volume, multi-sourced system for users, software developers, systems designers and chip manufacturers – exactly the same thing that the ACE initiative was supposed to be.
Microsoft, DEC collaborate on software
To forward their shared aims, Microsoft Corp will move its own Windows applications, starting with the Excel spreadsheet, to NT-on-Alpha, and the twosome will ensure that applications written for NT will recompile for Alpha as well as for Intel Corp iAPX-86 and MIPS R-series systems. Microsoft, meanwhile, will provide a full set of Alpha development tools in the NT Software Developers kit starting in the autumn. As expected, Microsoft is going to the Digital Equipment Corp multi-vendor networking well: NT will be a strategic part of DEC’s Network Application Support, NAS. The companies are writing common application programming interfaces for both NAS and the Windows Open Systems Architecture, Microsoft’s recently articulated blueprint for a single Windows applications programming interface across heterogeneous networks in global enterprises. DEC will implement its DECtp Desktop for the ACMS transaction processing client environment, a key NAS element, for all NT systems, so that programs can interact, and both companies will market the product. Microsoft will put DEC’s NAS-based eXcursion X-server up under NT to enable interaction with X applications on Unix, VMS and other environments. DEC will also extend its Pathworks personal computer integration, another NAS service, to include support for Windows NT clients and servers.
Joint development underway for a year
Microsoft and DEC have been implementing NT for Alpha for the last year: conveniently DEC has a facility just a mile away from the Microsoft campus in Belleview, Washington. DEC says it delayed any announcement until now so there would be meat on the bones, not just promises.
The shared Windows Open Systems Architecture/Network Application Support application programming interfaces the two are working on include standardising on SAG, the SQL Access Group Standard for database access. The mail API for Windows, Messaging Applications Programing Interface will be integrated with NAS X400. It will ship mid-1993. Both companies will adhere to the remote Procedure Call programming interface of the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Computing Environment and DEC will support the INsockets applications programming interface providing transparent access to multiple transports such as DECnet/OSI and TCP/IP. The two are also jointly developing an SQL Server GateWay for Rdb/VMS so Windows users can access information residing in Rdb/VMS databases. Rdb will then be able to connect with the 125-odd existing applications designed for Microsoft’s SQL Server. They expect to have the stuff ready to show in July.
Alpha machines to preview this week?
Digital Equipment Corp is believed to have a number of low-end Alpha personal computer projects going on: add the code name Jenson, prospectively a $5,000 box, to the $3,500 50 SPECmark Triumph we’ve already heard about. Meanwhile, DEC is tipped to have Alpha boxes running on the floor at DECWorld ’92 in Boston this week: expectations are that they may have a deskside Flamingo, and one-to-four-processor Laser there. The Sandpiper desktop is of course another possibility, but DECwatchers wonder if that model will be delayed to get its $12,000 to $15,000 price tag down to between $6,000 and $12,000. Meanwhile, there are rumours that the single or dual-processor Cobra, currently pegged at under $100,000 rather than the previously estimated $200,000, may not ever make it out the door because of overlap problems. It was thought to have been pitched at the VAX 4000 market. DEC says its 21064 Alpha chip is capable of delivering 400 peak MIPS via dual instruction issue and claims Alpha architecture will eventually allow up to 10 concurrent instructions. – Maureen O’Gara
