It’s difficult to see how a fire sale of its Alpha systems is going to restore Digital Equipment Corp to profit, but competition in the high-end workstation and server market is becoming more and more intense, so DEC is having to pass all its savings from improved volumes and from cheaper memory chips on to its customers. It yesterday lit a match under the price list for its 64-bit Alpha systems, with the price cuts on servers operating worldwide while the cuts on workstations extend to North America and Europe. AlphaServer 4000 and 4100 systems and memory are slashed by up to 55%. AlphaServer 8000 systems and memory modules are reduced up to 38%. Upgrades and memory for the AlphaServer 2000/2100/2100A models plummet by up to 44% and AlphaServer 1000A memory is reduced.
