Despite industry-wide speculation about how Compaq Computer Corp will resolve its entry into the workstation market, the company remains, at least publically, tight-lipped about its RISC intentions. Eckhard Pfeiffer, executive vice-president and chief operating officer, over in the UK to talk about the role of the European market in the company’s continuing fortunes, maintains that no concrete decision has yet been taken, and that the company is still putting the pieces of its RISC game plan together. However, in an attempt to pour some oil on stormy waters, he said that he hoped an announcement would not be too long away. In addition, Andreas Barth, vice-president of Compaq’s European operation, said that while the firm does not perceive any of the gang of current RISC technology suppliers as having created a standard for this type of processor environment, if some of these people got together – then this would be interesting. And in what can only be assumed to be veiled reference to the so-called Gang of Nine that is understood to be working on the creation of a new workstation standard he added that such a collaboration wouldn’t be just at the the processor level, it’s the operating system environment too. Two of that Gang of Nine, Microsoft Corp and Santa Cruz Operation Inc already have working agreements with Compaq – and it would make sense to work with existing partners, he said. As far as existing products go, Compaq reported that its European operation turned in sales of $1,800m in 1990 – up from $1,200m in the previous year – representing slightly more than 50% of its worldwide sales, and exceeding those of North America for the first time. Of that $1,800m, sales of its flagship SystemPro computer totalled $85m. The company looks for growth in Europe this year at least double the 13% forecast industry average, and expects to beat the 5% to 7% forecast for the US; he had no view on how profits would turn out but noted that the company looks for 8% to 10% net margins and achieved 12.6% last year. According to UK managing director Joe McNally, Compaq’s UK sales for 1990 were $504m, or 28% of total European sales last year, and the biggest single market outside the US. Overall the US accounts for 43% of revenue, followed by the UK with 14%, France 12%, Germany 9%, Italy, Canada, Netherlands and Switzerland 3% each, with others making up the remaining 8%.
