Gossip has been circulating in the IBM community of delays in shipments of the new top-end 3090S machines, and IBM UK has now confirmed that there is a short-term hold-up. Since IBM began initial shipments in August 1988, customer demand for the 3090E and 3090S remains very strong, the company said in a prepared statement. Initial projections for 1988 are for full production of 3090S systems in mid December, rather than early December as stated earlier. As a result, some 3090S shipments scheduled in late November and early December are delayed for two to three weeks; each customer account will be contacted to agree on an acceptable date for delivery. Since IBM in the US strongly denies that there are any such problems there, the hold-up seems to be a local one at the Montpellier factory in France, which builds the top-end IBM mainframes for Europe/Middle East/Africa.
