IBM forbore to try to spoil DEC’s big day yesterday with any trompe d’oeuil of its own, so the Maynard minimaker had the field clear for what gave the impression of being the biggest single announcement of new products in the company’s history. Although the company chose to major – at least in the UK – on the complete recasting of its VAX minicomputer line, which sees all the 8000 models superseded, discontinued and priced out of the market, in the US, all the media attention was focussed on the new DECstation 2100 RISC workstation where the monochrome unit is priced from $7,950 and an eight-plane colour system starts at $11,450 – with the 10 MIPS stations available now. In the US, the new VAX 6000 Model 400s, which wipe out the shortlived 8800s and deliver 85% more power than the 6300s, start at $257,000, and are also out now. The company has followed the Japanese and taken a leaf out Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book to institute a policy of permanent revolution with a constant stream of enhancements attenuating the traditional product cycle – a move that should pay off, provided it takes care of customers who bought the previous version just before the new one came out and obsoleted it. Full details of the launches, and future plans are in page three, inside.
