Athenix Inc, the 18-month-old Sunnyvale, California start-up with the star-laden management team that includes the former head of Sun Microsystems Inc’s worldwide operations, one of the magnificent seven from IBM Corp’s original Personal Computer group, a Bell Labs veteran credited with helping create Unix, and an expert display designer, is playing its cards very close to its vest about exactly how it will realise the claim that its first product will change the way X-terminals are priced and used. The newcomer planned to have a high-volume, small footprint manufacturing prototype at UniForum last week, but how ready and available it is and what price points it can hit remain to be seen. Athenix, named from the goddess Athena who sprang fully armed from the brow of Zeus, claims to have reinvented both X-terminal technology and the way the boxes are brought to market. The technology is called Multi-X and uses a shared-controller architecture so that server software, font and emulation software don’t have to be embedded in each box. It’s supposed to perform above and cost less than conventional X-stations. The controller under the Athenix scheme will have two basic forms: host-based and local network-based. The first will be self-contained in the host with high-speed access to its resources. The second will be a single local network connection and shared-resource controller servicing many graphics terminals. Athenix forecasts that in future its terminal will be upgraded without modifying the controller and vice versa. The company is spreading the burden and lowering its costs. It has Singapore-based multi-national Wearnes Automation Pte Ltd, an investor, manufacturing Multi-X at no cost, Merisel Inc handling inventory and delivery to OEM customers, resellers and end users, Altos as one of its OEM customers, and service and support coming possibly from Xerox Corp. It is believed to be aiming at heavy commercialisation, replacing the 4m $500 to $600 alphanumeric terminals US business buys each year but it probably won’t ship before the second quarter.
