Mitsubishi Electric Corp has long been a distant also-ran in the mainframe business, and even its OEM deal with IBM Corp on ES/9000s has not been able to save it. Its original Cosmo machines were derived from Xerox Corp Sigma licences, and were originally built in partnership with Oki Electric Industrial Co until Oki fell by the wayside. It then developed an IBM-compatible machine that also emulated the Cosmo environment – the current generation of that machine is the EX800, and in May 1991 added the entire IBM ES/9021 line above it as the EX900 family (CI No 1,670). Now the company says that while it will continue to market those two lines for as long as its customers want them, once they run out of steam it will exit the mainframe business. It is freezing all mainframe development and will concentrate that part of its business on packaged software, networks and systems. The company says that for the year to March last, its total computer sales were $2,350m, of which mainframes accounted for $280m; it has been losing money on mainframes for many years.
