In the next phase of Digital Equipment Corp’s programme to turn itself from an independent computer company into a Microsoft Corp lackey, the latter is to lend DEC $65m to cover the cost of training more engineers in Windows NT. DEC now has 800 people certified in Microsoft products, and its plans to train another 1,500, giving it the largest engineering team with that expertise. DEC will also second a team to Redmond to hold Microsoft to its promise that new versions of NT will continue to run on the Alpha RISC. The two will also cross-license their patent portfolios and work to diminish differences between specialised software such as their electronic mail programs, and DEC will become a major systems integrator of Microsoft products. And Microsoft will li cense DEC’s clustering technology for use in future Microsoft clustering offerings for Windows NT, the two said.
