Despite its renewed push into Open Systems last month with the launch of new top-end RISC-based systems bought OEM from Motorola Computer Systems, Alpha Microsystems Inc is unrepentant about its continuing proprietary stance. We’re unusual in that we’re a small company with proprietary products – 85% of our business is proprietary, says vice president of European operations Mike Osler. And, far from seeing that business decline with the launch of the new boxes, Osler says the proprietary business, using the Amos operating system, will grow even further. The company has built up a range of vertical market software for Amos, and claims to be second only to Unix in the number of those packages available, with Pick trailing in third. It provides tools for converting those written in Alpha Basic over to Unix, a process he says takes on average three weeks, and once users see that a path over to Unix is possible, they are happy and stay with Amos. Amos beats Unix on price by 25% every time, says Ostler. The top-end machines are necessary to fill out the range, but are unlikely to be big sellers, he admits. A top-end Amos machine should emerge over the next six months, but won’t use the 88000 – converting the 68000-based Amos software to run on the RISC chip is too big a job, says Ostler. Alpha Micro sells a range of Intel-based systems running MS-DOS and Unix. Meantime, Alpha has introduced Pick-64, its own high-performance implementation of Pick for Intel-based systems, said to be up to three times faster than current PC Pick. It will run up to 64 concurrent users, up from the previous limit of 33 users. And Alpha Microsystems also has a plug and play series of 80386SX-based dedicated Novell Inc NetWare workstations, named the Nodestar II range.
