Don’t hold your breath. The long-anticipated market confrontation between 80386-based personal computers and high-performance Unix workstations may be further off into the 1990s than most marketeers and industry watchers currently expect. Analyst Craig Whitney of Computer Intelligence Corp, La Jolla, California, last week told a packed Comdex session on PCs versus workstations that a recent survey of 100,000-plus PC and 42,000 workstation end-users revealed little overlap in usage in industries that buy PCs and workstations, respectively, in the last three to six months. Users still buy PCs primarily for word processing and spreadsheets, while workstations – Unix or otherwise – are used for software development, and software development, CAD/CAM, graphics, imaging, mechanical design, engineering, research, education and other technically-oriented applications. So while 80386 micros and Unix workstations may overlap in price and performance, Whitney said, they don’t in applications. And users won’t shift buying patterns for PCs and workstations by application or industry segment any time soon, indicating that a confrontation between PCs and workstations is far off. Inderestingly, Craig Whitney’s data also revealed one big reason why OS/2 and Micro Channel Architecture have not taken off: 80286-based systems comprised 39% of all PC purchases in the last six months, 80386-based systems totalled only 7%. Indeed, the two top-selling systems in the last three months were the 80286-based PS/2 Model 50 and the 8086-based Model 30. Users are still pretty happy with 80286 systems, said Whitney. Users have more horsepower than they need. And although Sun held a commanding lead among installed workstations users, with 34%, Whitney said 45% said they intended to purchase DEC equipment in the following year – and they meant mostly VMS-based VAXstations, not Unix-based RISC systems. – Maureen O’Gara
