Two years of effort went into the development of Olivetti’s new Linea Duo product family and the formulation of its open systems architecture (CI No 815), all with the aid and support of AT&T. Olivetti says that it has already shipped 250 systems from the LSX line to systems houses and anticipates selling systems with its proprietary MOS and with Unix in equal numbers. The entry level 68010-based LSX 3005 runs only MOS, the 3010, also based on the 68010, and the one, two and three processor 68020-based 3020, 3030 and 3040 all run both MOS and Unix, while the Edge Computer based 3070 and dual processor 3080 run only Unix. More distributors will be recruited to handle the new lines with the company intending to pitch the LSX3000 agressively into traditional IBM markets. To this end Olivetti will be setting up agents along IBM lines. Sales of the conflicting 3B line are expected to increase over the next two years but the company maintains that there will be no real overlap between the two lines because the 3B as it currently stands is a lower range. The machine that would conflict is the latest 3B/4000 which Olivetti has on beta test in France but the Italian states that it has offered no firm commitment to sell the machine. Olivetti will be renewing the bottom-end of its Stratus-based fault tolerant CPS series at the beginning of next year and will also be putting Unix on the whole line. During the first qurater of 1988 Olivetti will start filling an order for 800 LSX-MOS systems from the Abbey National Building Society.
TWO YEARS OF WORK – AND HELP FROM AT&T GOES INTO OLIVETTI’s LSX3000 LINEA DUO
