Tandem Computers Inc is making a major pitch at the decision support systems market, and has teamed up with software specialists in the field, offering them the new Himalaya parallel database servers, its parallel NonStop SQL database optimised for decision support, and consulting and sales services. Decision support systems are designed to trawl through corporate databases and present managers with timely information on trends, possible problems and opportunities in an ad ho manner. NonStop SQL enables data tables to be horizontally partitioned over thousands of disks so that all database operations can be handled in parallel. The first software companies signed for the effort are Prism Solutions Inc, Evolutionary Technologies Inc and Information Builders Inc, and others are to follow. Tandem is offering a disk storage package tailored specifically for large-scale decision support applications, where disk storage is a major cost consideration, and is pricing it at $2.50 per Megabyte.
