Cupertino, California-based Opus Systems Inc has formed a new separately managed division, Opus Systems Technology Group, which is to develop the company’s new hardware and software products and technologies. At the same time, Opus also formed the Opus Systems Commercial Group for sales and marketing of existing products, putting both divisions under the management of Opus Systems, which was founded in 1983. The new development group, under the control of general manager Madan Valluri, will work on Unix-based RISC systems such as the recently launched Portable Mainframe, which uses a dual processor architecture featuring a 20MHz or 25MHz Motorola 88000 RISC processor within a personal computer, using the native iAPX-86 Intel processor to handle input-output and run MS-DOS applications. Systems are rated at 17 MIPS or 21 MIPS, and have a starting price of $14,000. Opus president Marc Johnston said that, since the introduction of 88000-based products last year the comany had experienced extremely rapid growth. The company now claims to have 11,000 installations of its Personal Mainframe family, which originally used the Clipper RISC processor from Intergraph Corp.
