Campbell, California-based HaL Computer Systems Inc, the company formed by IBM Corp RS/6000 design team leader Andrew Heller to design its own – much faster – variant of the Sparc processor and build commercial Unix System V.4 machines with it (CI No 1,577), has caught the eye of Fujitsu Ltd, which has pumped in a massive $40.2m for a 44% stake, agreeing not to raise it further. Fujitsu will also make the chips, make its patents available, build some of the machines, and market in the Far East. It gets access to the advanced systems technology that HaL, already a 140-employee company, plans to develop. HaL is thinking in terms of both workstations and high-end machines for applications such as airline reservations, and is working on the kinds of systems management and operations software now lacking in Unix.
