Martin Jowett, marketing manager of Tektronix UK Ltd’s visual systems group, says that only three UK employees are directly affected by the US parent company’s decision to put its workstation division on the block, and he hopes that all can be found other positions within the company. A buyer for the stricken workstation division is unlikely to be found this late in the game, though Jowett says negotiations are continuing. Tektronix’ message to its remaining employees and customers is don’t panic. Tektronix will be offering a minimum of three years support for workstation hardware, and will continue with software enhancements for the next 12 months, though the planned transition from its Unix System V.3-based operating system software to Unix System V.4 has been axed. The company is re-directing efforts into developing its X-terminal products. The recently launched TekXpress colour family will likely be extended with models based on the Motorola 68040, and low-cost X-terminals will emerge at around the $1,000 mark – though no lower says Jowett – anticipating future X-terminal products from other manufacturers that are likely to break the $500 barrier. As far as RISC goes, Jowett says the firm is looking at Intel and Advanced Micro Devices technology in addition to the Motorola 88000 which it used in its workstation range. Tektronix is also ready with new models that incorporate touch-screen technology – developed in conjunction with one of its US value-added resellers – and that will be announced soon. The attempt to diversify products is currently pre-occupying many of the plethora of X-terminal developers struggling for a foothold in the crowded market, and one of the latest innovations is to attach disk subsystems to the back of X-terminals via SCSI interfaces and run Unix on the box. Although no-one has yet announced a product like this, many firms – Tektronix included are doing internal feasibility studies of this concept.
