Low-end personal computer makers can and have shrugged off the three-month delay imposed on the P5. There’s no competitive disadvantage for them in the Intel Corp decision. However, those at the high-end with stuff in the hopper like P5-based Unix multiprocessors are chafing at the the time they’re losing in getting the things to market. How irked are they? Well, NCR Corp, that paragon top-to-bottom Intel client, has put out feelers to Sun Microsystems Inc and Cyrix Corp about alternate systems. Doubtless it’s all just a safety precaution and will come to nothing. But it’s still a space worth watching. NCR is worried about Hewlett-Packard Co’s deepening penetration of its commercial market and Intel needs to do some soothing among this class of customer even though Intel defenders claim that the P5 schematics designers are using in the absence of silicon are so exact that system builders should have little trouble getting up and running and out the door once the chips are delivered. Meanwhile Intel vociferously denied to our sister paper Unigram last week that there was any truth to suggestions circulated on the Internet by General Electric Co’s research and development centre in New York that Intel has hit a brick wall with its P5 design because of radiation problems at high clock speeds, is not getting the yields, and has had to go for a crash redesign course that would delay parts until the end of next year.
