Acer America Corp has overhauled its notebook, desktop and AcerAltos servers lines (CI 2899). The entry-level Series 900 mini-tower is designed as a small application server or intranet Web server for up to 75 users. It comes with a single 133MHz Pentium, 512Kb cache, 16Mb to 192Mb memory, 4Gb disk, four PCI and three EISA slots, PCI SCSI-3 controller, CD-ROM and 1Mb Video RAM. It costs from $3,000. The mid-range single-tower Acer-Altos 9000 is designed to support up to 150 users and comes with one or two 166MHz Pentiums, 512Kb cache, 32Mb to 256Mb RAM, up to 4Gb disk, five PCI slots, three EISA slots, eight drive bays, PCI SCSI controller and CD-ROM. Prices range from $5,000 to $13,500. The AcerAltos twin-tower 19000 is designed to support up to 250 users. It supports one of Acer’s one- or two-way 200MHz Pentium Pro boards with the Intel Orion chip set, 256Kb cache, 32Mb to 512Mb RAM, up to 8Gb disks, six PCI and three EISA slots, PCI SCSI controller, CD-ROM, 14 drive bays and redundant power supply. Prices go from $12,000 to $25,000. All come with Acer StartUp and Server Manager Pro software plus Santa Cruz Operation Inc Open-Server, NetWare or Windows NT Server. The 900 and 9000 models replace the year-old 100MHz Pentium 800/p uniprocessor and two-way 7000/p. The 19000 replaces the four-way 17000. The 19000 uses Acer’s own motherboard, not Intel Corp’s four-way Standard High Volume boards, volume deliveries of which had already been allocated by the time it was able to ask Intel about availability, Acer says. Like the other non-Standard High Volume Pentium Pro system manufacturers, Acer has been able to design additional expansion and other options into its own board design. It promises a four-way motherboard for the 19000 later in the year – its problem is the Orion chip set’s current lack of scalability. Acer has also implemented the Desktop Management Interface into BIOS and has implemented a management and diagnostic ASIC chip set into the new systems which support its Acer StartUp and ServerManager applications. The 19000 may not make it to non-US markets as the high-end systems have not sold well in international markets. Local countries may take the 19000 board and implement it in the less-expandable 9000 single tower to make it more attractive. The distribution channel is still shifting more NetWare servers than any other system, although Santa Cruz Open Server is now up to around 30% of sales. In the corporate market, Windows NT predominates, Acer says. It has had no requests for UnixWare.
