Sequent Computer Systems Inc is set to expand its OEM relationship with Unisys Corp, and has outlined a future hardware strategy that will see it merging its Winserver and Symmetry lines, this week’s edition of our sister paper Unigram.X reports. Unisys currently takes the Symmetry 2000 line as the basis of its U6000 Model 75 and 85s, but now plans to replace it with the Beaverton, Oregon firm’s recently-launched Symmetry 5000s. The Unisys UK subsidiary will now deal direct with Sequent rather than through its own US parent, so that the two can work more closely on services. Sources within Sequent also said that Unisys will be taking the Windows NT-running Winserver machines OEM – odd that, since Sequent itself takes them OEM from Tricord Systems Inc, and is said to have warehouses full of unsold ones. This deal has not been confirmed by Unisys. Sequent is still planning to merge the Winserver and Symmetry lines as it said it would in October, placing a hardware abstraction layer between the operating system and the CPU – it should have had this work completed last month. Meanwhile, company sources deny accusations that NT isn’t selling, claiming that it has sold multiple-box Winserver installations into 15-odd UK accounts, but adds that NT still can’t scale up to 30 CPUs. Unisys’s own iAPX-86 development work should yield a U6000 Series 500 Model 80 eight-processor Pentium machine to join the five-Pentium Model 50, by year-end.
