NCR Corp has won the beauty contest to supply Sequent Computer Systems Inc with entry-level and mid-range Windows NT servers, its so-called Elmer Fudd boxes (CI No 3,049). Sequent becomes the first high-profile customer for NCR’s recently-created OEM division (CI No 3,076). Sequent, which had also been evaluating Intel Corp and Corollary Inc as alternative sources (CI No 3,049), is taking NCR’s much-fancied WorldMark 4300 servers for a second, third or fourth go at the low-end/NT space, depending on how you look at it. Sequent’s initial foray into the low-end market ended with it turning to Tricord Systems Inc for NT servers, a deal which began to fall apart at the end of 1994 due to poor sales. Then in July of last year it bought the assets of Dr Steve Chen’s Chen Systems Inc, ostensibly for its NT work (CI No 2,942). The WorldMark 4300 uses NCR’s OctaScale interconnect to package two four-way Intel Corp Pentium Pro SHV boards together in a single system. It comes with with hot pluggable disks and power supplies, built-in service modem, uninterruptible power supply and hot pluugable server manager processor. Sequent’s recent focus has been getting its ccNUMA-Q technology out of the door. NCR said it had four-way machines ready now, with eight-way systems due in March; no prices given. Between 1993 and 1996 the company spent $54m developing the distributed shared memory architecture; it estimates it’ll spend a further $20m on it this calendar year.
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