NEC Corp is joining the rush to develop new low-cost versions of its top-of-the-line GCOS 8-compatible mainframes, presumably by following its partner Compagnie des Machines Bull SA into moderately parallel processing – Bull has beaten IBM to market with complete fully-compatible parallel DPS 7 mainframes that scale up to 24 processors. Higher levels of integration will enable NEC to make smaller models with the same performance as existing models, and cut manufacturing costs. The new models will take up only a quarter the floor space, require less power and sell for one-fifth to one-third of current prices; it plans to start sales in mid-1996.
