Motorola Inc, which was top of the SpecMark performance tree with its Delta 8612 before IBM launched the RS/6000, hopes to be the first to respond to the IBM machines, and to reassume performance leadership on March 5. On that day, reports the Wall Street Journal, the company plans to launch a string of 88000 RISC-based workstations and servers that the company claims will match the RS/6000s in overall performance, offer higher resolution graphics, and come it at prices 35% lower than IBM’s. Motorola also plans a $30m advertising campaign with the launch to put itself on the computer map. It has invested heavily in manufacturing automation in an effort to become one of the lowest-cost producers in the business, cutting the time to build a complete computer to five days from a one-time 30 weeks.
