Force Computers Inc, which operates out of San Jose, California and Munich, Germany, has expanded its Sparc-based embedded systems offerings with a new range of workstation motherboards with SBus input-output expansion. Force, which made its name in the Motorola/VME-bus embedded systems market, began offering its first Sparc-based products back in 1990. Although two-thirds of its shipments are still Motorola/VME, only one third of new design wins now ask for Motorola-based technology. And Force now says that there is a growing demand for SBus systems that do not require the added overhead of a VME bus. While VME is still useful for customers wanting input-output flexibility, CPU interchange, flexible multiprocessing and Unix-real-time combinations, the new ESP Embedded Sparc Platform range of motherboards offers SBus and MBus flexibility (four SBus slots), faster access to new technology and lower board and systems costs. There are four products: the microSparc-based ESP3, the Weitek Sparc Power-based ESP2, the 80MHz SuperSparc-based ESP10 Model 40 and the 50MHz ESP10 Model 51. Force claims to offer OEM customers and industrial integrators a consistency of product line that Sun itself does not: the ESP2 is SparcStation-2 compatible, an option no longer available from Sun and can come with Solaris 1.X or 2.X, while the board form factor, which changes size with every new Sun product line, remains the same in Force products, especially important for embedded systems customers. Force sells its product lines at three levels: boards alone; boards with system software (Unix, Solaris and real-time operating systems such as VXWorks and OS/9); and integrated systems, including the chassis. It even sells complete systems to industrial users, and has just announced a multi-million dollar agreement with AEG Automation for over 300 industrial workstations. Force has had its greatest success in the telecommunications, industrial control, medical and pre-press industry. The company, which has just opened new subsidiaries in Japan and in Sweden, closed its 1993 fiscal year at the end of the calendar year with $75m sales, an 18% increase over the previous year. It is keeping its eye on new technologies such as the PowerPC, and plans MicroSparc 2 and FutureBus products during the second quarter.
