The sub-$10,000 Bushmaster won’t be the only new wriggler to feature in Hewlett-Packard Co’s Precision Architecture RISC workstation snakepit. According to sources, the firm is preparing to hatch several other low-end companions for Bushmaster, all of which – tilting at Sun Microsystems Inc – are said to be embarrassingly fast. Details of the workstations will be revealed during a closed session at Adus/UK, the annual HP/Apollo workstation user society meeting, which takes place in Solihull, Birmingham, October 17 and 18. Press briefings are set for December, with product announcements due in January next year. Hewlett-Packard is already trying to cope with a huge backlog of orders for its existing Snakes – a shortfall of floating point parts from Texas Instruments Inc is aggravating its attempts to get them out of the pit – and the firm expects a poor set of quarterly figures to reflect this combination of forces. However, if revenues are set to show a downturn, the order books are stuffed full, the company says. Its UK operation has now put in a revised order for Snakes that is some 200% above its originally estimated requirement, company sources say.
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