Solflower Computer Inc, a four-year-old San Jose, California Sun Microsystems Inc follower, looks to be the first of the cloners out with a Sparcstation-2 compatible. The unit, dubbed the SFVME 400, adds value by incorporating a maximum of three 6U VME boards. Motherboards are coming direct from Sun Microsystems for which Solflower president Kim Vu said he is paying between $5,000 and $10,000 depending on quantity. Solflower said the SFVME 400 would be configured as a fully-loaded system complete with 28.5 MIPS Sparc 2 CPU, 208Mb drive, SBus and 19 colour monitor costing $19,000. It will also be put out in OEM configurations without the Sparc 2 CPU or peripherals for $5,000. First deliveries are set for next month and Vu says he expects to sell between 5,000 and 10,000 units in the next two years. Some will go direct or to resellers, but the majority he claims will be through hardware OEM customers. Target markets include image acquisition, engineering, military and industrial environments. The Solflower design reportedly incorporates all the necessary logic to handle the differences between the basic S-Bus and VME operations. The widget is Solflower’s first system, the company being previously in the add in board Sbus to VME board business.
