Chrysler Corp has given a major boost to Microsoft Corp and Intel CorpÆs joint efforts to establish the Intel architecture and Windows NT in the technical workstation market. On Monday, Chrysler announced plans to begin adoption of Intel-based workstations running NT in place of Unix for its product design and manufacturing operations. Chrysler plans an initial roll-out of Intel Pentium II Xeon systems running Dassault Systems SAÆs Catia design applications in early 1999. The company, which has just seen its proposed move to merge with Daimler Benz AG approved by shareholders, said its principal goal in moving to Intel and NT is to have a unifying infrastructure that allows Chrysler to react more quickly to our customers, suppliers and the market. Reduced support and training costs are also a factor, the company said, as was the increasing focus of application development efforts away from Unix to NT. Many engineers currently have both a PC and a Unix workstation on their desks, and Chrysler wants to cut that down to a single desktop. Chrysler chose Catia as its standard CAD/CAM application in 1989 and installed it on over 3,000 Unix workstations, eliminating the proprietary CAD/CAM stations it had at the time. It later extended Catia capabilities to 700 of its suppliers with 4,000 workstations connected to its network. It uses a mixture of IBM Corp, Silicon Graphics Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc workstations. Daimler has been a Catia customer since 1983 and currently has 2,500 seats installed on mixed vendor Unix systems.