Recognising that its Sparcservers are inadequate where the requirement is for full-scale multi-user business computers, Sun Microsystems Inc has again turned to ICL to fill the gap, and has agreed to a joint marketing agreement under which Sun will offer its workstations and servers while ICL will offer the Sparc-based DRS 6000 Unix machines, which include symmetric multi-processing extensions that Sun also does not have. In the first instance, the agreement covers sales in the US, but the two say they expect to extend the agreement worldwide later this year. The two will make joint sales calls and engage in other activities to promote installations that include workstations and servers from Sun and the ICL DRS 6000. International Data Corp expects Sparc-based systems to account for 61% of the RISC market by the end of the year, with MIPS having 19%. Sun already offers ICL’s OfficePower in its software catalogue. The two yesterday announced that ICL would make the boards for the machines Sun plans to build at its Linlithgow plant (CI No 1,464).
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