Amdahl Corp, which has won the backing of Oracle Corp in its campaign to convince the world of the benefits of mainframe Unix (CI No 1,423), is dissatisfied at the rate of acceptance of its UTS implementation of Unix System V for 370 architecture machines – it has sold 200 mainframe Unix licences all told and has moved to increase the sense of urgency in its Unix operations by putting them all under one man. He is Joseph Francesconi, formerly senior vice-president for customer services, communications systems and corporate information services, who takes the title senior vice-president for software and communications products. Part of his new mission is to put a rocket under the Key Computer Laboratories acquisition in Fremont, California. Key is working on development of Amdahl’s own Unix supercomputer. The development project was a year behind schedule last November and the then target date for launch by the end of this year may have slipped again according to Electronic News. The project, estimated to be costing Amdahl $30m a year, is thought to be based on a project that was aborted at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories: it is said to be aiming for uniprocessor scalar performance about three times that of the Cray Research Inc Y-MP. Amdahl’s other new Unix initiative is the 7300 series of Unix-only 370-like mach ines based on Fujitsu Ltd M-760s introduced six months ago. The company reports that while some are on evaluation, it has not made any sales yet. The 7300s are not yet announced anywhere outside the US.
