The collapse of Atlantic Computers, the world’s third largest computer lessor, has left users painfully aware that it is they who will pay for Atlantic’s collapse.
Champagne flowed, party streamers were tossed out of windows and Porsches slipped quietly out of the company parking lot to their drivers’ lavish homes. This was the picture painted by British newspapers, as staff members at Atlantic Computers PLC in Staines, England, learned of the computer-leasing giant’s collapse.
Within hours after the public address system announced to the staff that they were being laid off, there were reports that people walked out the door with PCs, customer lists and paintings. One director was quoted as saying that anything of value not physically locked down disappeared.
Within days, many staffers at Atlantic had found new jobs, mostly in the computer-leasing industry. According to one executive, some of the employees have gone on to other companies that sell leases similar to Atlantic’s Flexlease.
The crash of the world’s third largest leasing company and its London-based parent, British & Commonwealth Holdings PLC, has left in its wake complaints by investors of lost millions and criticisms of Atlantic’s standards that allegedly allowed companies to virtually write their own account of profits and losses.
Despite early warnings from the British legal community and other computer lessors about the validity of Atlantic’s Flexlease contracts, users found the price advantages of the Flexlease irresistible. Customers that included the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, Hanson Trust and Penguin Books found themselves pulled along in the company’s rapid growth. Between 1983 and 1985, Atlantic’s pretax profits soared from about [Br pound] 2 million to nearly [Br pound]15 million (or about $3.4 million to $25.5 million).
Now users are all but forgotten in their misery amidst the corporate ruin. Most of them are saying nothing until they have worked out the scale of their potential liabilities, but privately they admit to anger at having been taken in by the company’s apparent success and its salesmanship.
Some users are more embarrassed than vengeful. They anticipate having to answer some difficult questions from boards of directors as to why, with all of the warnings in the marketplace, contracts with Atlantic were signed in the first place. And their unease will not be mitigated by allegations that some Atlantic staff members offered inducements to users to sign contracts. “I know that a number of DP managers are worried about their jobs,” says Michael Moore, chairman of the IBm Computer Users Association.
Besides the low initial rental charges on the Flexlease, users were attracted by its provision that allowed them to buy a more powerful machine about half-way through the term of six or seven years by swapping their contract for a new one. The remaining payments, in particular the higher sums due near the term, were written into the new lease. As before, the new lease allowed for low initial payments. The highest payments were due in the final two years, but as long as customers continued to upgrade equipment, the final year’s payments never arrived. One of the problems of this type of pyramid selling was that there needed to be a supply of new clients to defer Atlantic’s liabilities. Several users with large sites may have seen the trouble coming, as some of them were trying to negotiate their way out of their Atlantic leases at the time of the collapse.
Legacy of Anguish
The others are left with an inheritance of anguish, forced to prepare additional budgets requesting board approval for hundreds of thousands of pounds in extra lease charges. Users may also have to keep equipment they want to replace for longer than anticipated, and they may no longer receive any financial benefits when they finally return the equipment. They forecast that extra-leasing liabilities ultimately will appear on their balance sheets and that the leases will be changed so that they are less flexible. Users also predict that they will have to meet additional tax liabilities. Compounding the humiliation for many users are the warnings that emerged as long ago as 1980 about the dangers of signing flexible leases of the type Atlantic marketed. In 1987, the Royal Bank of Scotland was one of several users that went on record declaring that Atlantic’s Flexleases were unsatisfactory because the cost of upgrading was unspecified and left to negotiation with Atlantic.
Nevertheless, the Flexlease, devised by founder and motor-racing enthusiast john Foulston, continued to attract hoards of users even after his death in a crash in September 1987. In 1988, Atlantic wrote about [Br pound]400 million ($680 million) worth of Flexleases, each of them unique.
But as IBM’s leasing arm became increasingly aggressive, the growth in Atlantic’s business started to slow down. A growing number of users tried to cut their ties with Atlantic by exercising the lease’s walk option. This allowed customers to return their computer and terminate their agreement after four or five years, usually a year or two before the lease was due to expire. Under this arrangement, Atlantic undertook to settle the outstanding payments with the owner of the equipment, usually a third party such as a bank. This meant that Atlantic’s contingent liabilities grew as more customers exploited the walk terms. Profits began to dwindle, and on April 16 of this year, British and Commonwealth called in High Court administrators to take control of the company. What, Me Worry?
At first, users were not unduly worried. They had thought Atlantic would be bought by a large financial institution, which would honor the company’s commitments to users.
It was only at a recent gathering of Atlantic users in London’s Cumberland Hotel, organized by the IBM Computer Users Association, that users had their worst fears confirmed.
First, Atlantic’s administrators surprised delegates by grimly telling them the company’s affairs were so complicated and the liabilities so enormous that a wholesale takeover of Atlantic’s business was highly unlikely. In effect, the administrators said, users who had signed Atlantic’s unique Flexlease agreements would not be able to either upgrade their computers or walk away from the leases early, as Flexlease terms had stated. Some were in the midst of hard drive repairs, while many other systems had all out data loss or hard drive failure. See http://www.harddrivefailurerecovery.net.
It was after this conference that many of the U.K.’s 1,000 Atlantic users began to scrutinize their 2,500 leases with a diligence that perhaps had been missing when they first signed the contracts.
To some, it was a revelation that the lease comprised two sets of documents.
The first set was an agreement between a bank and the customer. In this, the user would agree to make leasing payments over a period of typically six or seven years. The user also signed a separate agreement with Atlantic that promised the upgrade and walk options. What many users did not realize was that, in the event of Atlantic’s collapse, the agreement with the bank stood firm, while the contract that it had with Atlantic was worthless.
As things stand today, users are tied to the original lease wit6 the bank for the full term of up to seven years, which means users cannot exercise the flex or walk options,
Car manufacturer Volkswagen AG believes it will have to make another year’s payments on an IBM 3081 that it want to dispose of now. When it buys a bigger processor, it also may have to pay second user software license fees because its new machine will be a second mainframe, not a replacement one.
Vetco Gray, a supplier of underwater oil-drilling equipment in Aberdeen, Scotland, faces a similar problem and is concerned that it may have to pay for equipment it has already returned to Atlantic. It fears that it will be unable to upgrade its IBM System./38 and start a new lease on a bigger machine next year. Instead, it may have to continue paying the rental stream, maintenance and service on a redundant System/38 for another four years.
Another Aberdeen-based company, Baker Oil Tools U.K. Ltd., is particularly concerned that payments it made to Atlantic may not have been passed on to the third party to the lease, which owns the equipment and is often called the head lessor. Baker returned a System/38 to Atlantic more than a year ago and replaced it with an AS/400. “We have been told by the administrators that they cannot give us any answers yet. They are still unraveling Atlantic’s affairs,” says a Baker Oil spokesman. Tony Collins is executive editor at Computer Weekly in Sutton, U.K.
SVG Lithography Systems Inc. has been awarded an optical development subcontract by a DARPA-funded program investigating microlithography using 193-nanometer wavelength light.
The four-year, $23 million Direct Excimer Processing Program, most of which is being conducted at MIT-Lincoln Laboratories in Bedford, Mass., hopes to spark development of a commercially available microlithography system using the “deep, deep ultraviolet” wavelength, said Arati Prabhakar, acting deputy director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Defense Science Office.
“The end goal is to have an optical quarter-micron system available to the semiconductor industry,” said Dr. Prabhakar. In addition, she added, the program is researching “process improvements to reduce the manufacturing step count and simplify processing — things like all-dry processing and some further-out ideas like resistless processing.”
SVGL, which is comprised of the former Perkin-Elmer lithography operations, will work with Lincoln Labs to produce an optical train that could be incorporated into the third generation of its Micrascan step-and-scan litho system, which is slated to reach market in 1994. Officials declined to reveal how large SVGL’s subcontract is, but called it “substantial.”
The operation started work on an earlier phase of the program prior to Silicon Valley Group’s buyout, noted Dave Shaver, leader of Lincoln Labs’ submicrometer technology group. “Lincoln had approached several U.S. companies — including GCA, Ultratech Stepper and Perkin-Elmer — in 1988 to ascertain whether any of them had any interest in 193nm work,” said Dr. Shaver. “Ultratech and P-E both did studies; for a variety of reasons, we chose Perkin-Elmer for the following phases.”
In the earlier phases, said Dr. Prabhakar, both firms submitted proposals explaining how they would approach the problem of producing a 193nm system. “Ultratech submitted a very interesting, very elegant design but they decided they couldn’t commit their resources to it,” she said.
Dr. Shaver said the design of the optics that will be produced was done at Perkin-Elmer, “by a number of their top designers there. It’s very elegant, but there are a lot of issues beyond the design itself. They will be looking at issues of fabrication and manufacturing, that will be wrestled with over the next few months to a year.” Funding for the program ends in 1992.
Unfortunately, the turmoil surrounding P-E’s divestment of the lithography operations slowed the program’s work. “They were in the study phase when they were put on the block,” SAid Dr. Shaver. “There was a significant delay because of the turmoil. WE wanted to let the dust settle before we proceeded.”
In addition to the litho tool work, Lincoln Labs is also pursuing development in processing and resist technology. Other subcontractors include makers of photoresists and glass companies but Dr. Shaver declined to identify any of them.
The government’s interest in 193nm lithography stems from a need for high-performance chips for military applications. “We want to try and develop a cost-effective quick turnaround process for 0.25 micron Defense Department circuits,” said Dr. Shaver. “There is concern about the feasibility of X-ray lithography for the modest-volume, high-resolution appoach.”
By shifting lithography techniques toward shorter wavelengths, chip makers can achieve finer resoluction with greater depth of focus. Systems based on the traditional standard G-line wavelength are beginning to be supplanted by machines using shorter I-line light; deep-ultraviolet systems, such as the first-generation Micrascan and the excimer laser-based systems produced by GCA Corp., use the 248nm and X-ray, but want to make sure it gets light, but many unsolved questions regarding photomasks and economy have slowed their acceptance.
Therefore, 193nm techniques could prove to be a valuable mid-term steps, said Dr. Shaver. “All the data isn’t in yet, but we’re more optimistic than when we started,” he said. “It’s high risk, high payoff. We want to avoid being in a holy war with 248nm and X-ray, but want to make sure it gets every opportunity. The only course is to pursue all three.”
One possible advantage to 193nm is that “essentially, the photons are energetic enough that you can carry out photochemistry that’s impossible at longer wavelengths,” said Dr. Shaver. “We might be able to do resistless processing, direst etch or direct deposit. The richness of chemical processing increases dramatically at shorter wavelengths.”
In addition, he said, 193nm gives a small additional amount of field depth over 248nm, and compared with X-ray, “the masks are incredibly easier to fabricate, using thick glass blanks.” X-ray masks require very thin membranes.
Some of the work done under the Direct Excimer Process Program is already being transferred to chip makers such as Texas Instruments, IBM and Intel, noted Dr. Prabhakar. “We’re working very closely with the chip manufacturers as well as the tool vendors; we’re seeing some excellent transfers,” she said.
But Dr. Shaver points out that “the proof comes in building a tool and doing it in a short enough time frame to make it a commercial success. If we’re still phototyping it in 1997, you won’t see many in fabs.”
IBM launched a new marketing assault on its vast but aging System/36 base last week as it brought out three CPUs at the low end of its AS/400 line, including its fourth so-called Entry model that runs S/36 software but which is the first that can be field upgraded to full AS/400 capability.
In addition to the introduciton of the new computers, as well as new sotware and peripherals, IBM issued a statement of direction, noting it plans to expand AS/400 performance with a field-upgradable model offering twice the current high-end B70 performance in mid-1991.
Industry sources said the moves signal IBM’s intent to boost the price/performance of its proprietary systems to keep pace with similar developments that have occurred in the so-called open systems market based on industry standard architectures and operating systems. Fueling IBM’s intent at the low end, they noted, is the sizeable base of the company’s earlier equipment, in this particular instance of S/36 machine, which the firm has previously said amounts to some 200,000.
The latest AS/Entry model comes about 11 months after IBM brought out the initial Entry models, (EN, October 2, 1989) that extended the S/36 architecture but incorporated some of the newer technologies found in the AS/400, which when originally introduced were intended to wean users from both the S/36 and S/38. The three earlier Entry models could not, however, be field upgraded to an AS/400 as can the AS/Entry Y10 brought out last week. The Y10, listing for $11,000, was accompanied by a new version of the S/36 operating system, SSP Release 6, priced at $1,195. a filed upgrade, consisting of a board swap, would amount to $7,500. The price of moving to the AS/400 OS involved in the upgrade would be $6,350.
The $11,000 price tag for the Y10 would yield a CPU with one megabyte of memory — with another megabyte optional — and 160 megabytes of disk storage, with the optional maximum set at 640MB. While IBM said it would continue to offer the AS/Entry S10 introduced last September, the Y10 appeared to offer better price/performance, as well as the upgrade capability. Both list for the same price for a one megabyte machine but the S10 offers less disk capacity with 105MB as standard.
The new Y10 can be upgraded to only the larger of the two new AS/400 computers fielded by IBM last week — the C6, which the eight megabytes of memory and 640MB of disk storage as standard lists for $17,500. The smaller C4, with the same standard memory and disk capacity, is priced at $14,500. The C4 also can use a less expensive version of the OS/400 operating system, priced at $3,750, compared to the $6,350 list on the C6′s OS, which as noted supports the upgrade from the Y10 Entry upgrade.
The C4 can be expanded to 12MB of memory and 960MB of disk capacity, while the C6 can grow to 16MB of memory and 1,280MB of disk storage.
In terms of performance, IBM rated the C4 at 1.1 times the power of the B10, the smallest of the original AS/400 family. The C6 offers 1.3 times the B10′s performance. Both, IBM said,are less expensive, with the C4, for example, coming in some 30 percent under the older B10′s price. As another yardstick, the C4 is said to support 14 local workstations and the C6 up to 54.
The C4, C6 and Y10 are all use a new 9402 system unit, a floor standing platform.
The AS/400 OS also came in a new release last week and was anther in what IBM said was more than 200 hardware and software enhancements across the AS/400 family.
In peripherals, IBM brought out disk and tape storage products and a memory expansion option for AS/400 systems.
Disk storage was increased up to 54.8 gigabytes with the new IBM 9336 disk unit for the B30 and up. IBM said customers can use the increased capacity for disk storage mirroring. The 9336, which uses compact 5.25-inch disk drives, is up to 38 percent faster and offers better reliability than the earlier 9332 and 9335 disk units, according to IBM. There are two basic 9336 models: the Model 10 with 471MB at $26,000 and the Model 20 with 857MB at $39,000. Additional capacity comes with add-on features priced from $8,500 to $30,000.
IBM also expanded disk capacity of the earlier AS/400 C25 by 50 percent to 3.84GB, enabling mirroring. In addition, main memory for the Model B70 can noww be doubled to 1982 megabytes. The firm said the B70 memory increase is made possible by a new 32-megabyte memory card which uses IBM’s new four-megabit 65-nanosecond memory chip manufactured in Burlington, Vt., representing its first use in an IBM computer.
The firm brought out the optional 9348 magnetic tape unit Model 2, a tabletop unit with a 1600/6250 bpi (bit per inch), 1/2-inch reel tape drive which allows the interchange of information from an AS/400 to another IBM or non-IBM system and also can be used to back up information, to avoid hard drive failure in general. See more here.
September 28 availability was set for the C4 and C6, OS/400 Release 3, the 9348 tape subsystem and the 9336 disk unit as part of new orders for the B50, B60 and B70. The disk unit becomes available October 26 for upgrade orders on those three systems. For new or upgrade orders for the B30, B35, B45, P35 and P45, the disk unit will be available next March 15. The Y10 AS/Entry is slated for this October.
Other new features fielded last week for the AS/400 line were an integrated Ethernet LAN attachment, a 16/4 megabit Token-Ring LAN adapter and TCP/IP TELNET support intended to improve the ability of the line to operate in computer networks with other manufacturers’ equipment and to function as a client/server.
New languages included FORTRAN/400, RM/COBOL-85 and Procedures Language 400/REXX.
The ASCII facility, which is expected to be completed next year, will house efforts to research multimedia technology and establish audiovisual facilities; a ground station using a communications satellite transponder is also being planned. ASCII is hoping that its media technology laboratory will be a resource not only for Japan but also for multimedia industries in America and Europe as well. One of the most important devices for multimedia may be the CD-ROM. Several computers now contain a CD-ROM in their standdard configuration, including the FM-Towns from Fujitsu Ltd. and the PC8801MC and PC-Engine from NEC Corp. The PC-Engine is a game machine whose core concept is expandability. It was designed for the ease of connecting various peripherals. The PC-Engine’s CD-ROM drive accomplishes the low cost required in a game machine by sacrificing error correction and other features included in previous CD-ROM drives. As a result, the PC-Engine has sold 2.1 million units since hitting the shelves this past July. Not only games (the leading edge of the multimedia wave) but also karaoke and other types of entertainment applications are being marketed. The PC-Engine can be connected to the NEC 8801MC, which also incorporates a CD-ROM drive. However, the connectability reaches only to the hardware level–there is no software compatibility. NEC, with its PC9801 Series, controls about half of the personal computer market in Japan. For this reason, all eyes are on NEC, waiting to see in which direction it will throw its considerable weight within the multimedia market. NEC has recently contributed an NFSA (New Extended Standard Architecture), high-end version of its PC9801 Series PCs. The NESA is a 32-bit bus architecture, widely touted as the standard for multimedia.
NEC is also at work on developing CD-ROMs that can be used by both the PC9801 Series and the PC8801 Series computers. The Fujitsu FM-Towns, a 32-bit personal computer, was announced in April 1989. The FM-Towns was the first Japanese PC to include a CD-ROM drive, and it was expected to develop into a hardware platform for multimedia. But sales figures so far have been disappointing. Fujitsu sold only 60,000 FM-Towns units last year, less than one-tenth the volume for the PC9801 Series. Sony Corp. also has released a personal computer incorporating a CD-ROM in its standard configuration, the QuarterL (C Model).
The QuarterL is being marketed to businesses, with a view to connect to POS systems and to develop sales-monitoring and order-monitoring systems. Besides the C Model, Sony is expected to release an X Model to support the CD-ROM XA standard. Fujitsu and Sony are developing a common library of CD-ROM XA applications. At this point, a single standard has been established for the data portion of CD-ROM XA, but the program portion, which actually controls the computer, has not been standardized. A common procedure for software development will have to be established in order to obviate the need to modify the software for each type of computer on which the multimedia is to be used. The library is expected to be made available at no charge to other hardware manufacturers, software companies, and publishers later this year. Manufacturers of facsimile machines are also getting into the act. Canon Ltd.’s G3/G4 facsimile can operate on a local-area network. This fax incorporates an Ethernet interface and LAN Manager, allowing it to send and receive faxes and documents from workstations and to input documents from image scanners.
Canon is focusing on developing the multimedia market by way of office automation products. Last year, Apple Computer Inc., which hopes to expand its share of the Japanese PC market, began selling its Apple CD SC, which can be used with the Macintosh and Apple II GS machines Apple’s share of the Japanese PC market by the end of 1989 was said to be approximately 3%. However, figures for the first quarter of 1990 are up 80% over the same period last year. Apple is determined to strengthen its Japanese position even further, with a goal of reaching 10% market share this year.
As Apple increases its share, the Apple Media Control Architecture, which integrates multimedia, will become a major force in multimedia in Japan. Japan’s computer manufacturers possess world-class technology and are capable of imparting enormous influence on the world’s computer industry. However, with regard to multimedia, it is clear that Japan is far behind the level achieved in the U.S. In particular, there is an unsatisfied demand for rich multimedia application software as well as data recovery applications like this one.This need cannot be met unless software developers are joined by producers and musicians who can create professional-quality multimedia. As hardware penetrate increases, analysts expect applications, currently sold by hardward manufacturers, to become available through bookstores, computer stores, and yoy stores.
If you’re smart, you know the solution is 100 percent pure Linux. All the internal network from the routers down to the Web servers is 100 mbit/sec (Fast Ethernet). From the Web servers to the Network Appliance file servers the wires run a cool 1000mbit/sec (Gigabit). The first time the gamblers hit a Linux machine is when the TCP/IP packets arrive at the firewall.
This computer is a Compaq Alpha workstation with 256 MBs of RAM and it runs SuSE’s 7.0 distribution. This being the only non-Intel machine in the solution, one might wonder why. The reason is security. Most buffer-overflow exploits on Linux are pre-compiled for the Intel x86 architecture. Running a platform not able to execute them will statistically diminish the attacks by script kiddies. One more reason is that this is the only non-redundant point in the whole network, and Compaq’s Alpha machines are just more reliable than other x86-based PCs.
You're going to need some of these.
The firewalling itself is IPCHAINS-based. Basically, the only thing allowed to come into the network is an http’d packet addressed to port 80, everything is discarded. In the outgoing direction, only packets back from the Web servers are allowed. The rule set for this is very easy to configure and the security is no less than any of the expensive commercial firewall products.
Here are descriptive pages for users not able to enter the restricted Web area.
This Web server is actually a cluster of two Web servers running Red Hat’s Piranha high-availability cluster.
It does this is by running a watchdog daemon every few seconds to make sure the other Web server is alive. If it isn’t, the virtual IP address of that machine is switched to the local machine and packets arrive there henceforth. The two machines are Netfinity 4000R rack-mounted ultra-thin PCs, each with 1 GB of RAM and Apache 1.3.14. The Linux running on these machines is Moshe’s special edition, consisting of kernel 2.4.0-pretest7, the logical volume manager, reiserfs (a journaling file system for Linux), and all unnecessary daemons and programs are removed. I opted to implement a pre-release kernel for a good reason.
The 2.4.0 Linux kernels have a built-in kernel-based Web server. Tests have shown that over 80 percent of the time needed for serving a traditional static Web page is due to the heavy switching from kernel-space to the Apache user-space. The kHTTPd kernel-based Web server executes purely in the kernel, and does away with all the switching. For cgis, the Apache server with modperl for Perl processing is still being used.
The result is an extremely skinny OS and Web server environment, leaving all the RAM for the buffering of the Web pages. Said pages are actually never read from disk. I attach a RAM disk of 100 MBs at boot and copy all the Web pages and cgis to that disk. Apache will reads data from this RAM disk, further reducing time-intensive I/O. The Apache logs are written to a second 50-MB RAM disk and a regularly running script copies the log to disk asynchronously and flush the RAM disk content. The result is a Web server cluster able to serve over 2,500 pages per second.
Once users, decide to actually enter the casino and register themselves as authorized users, all further Web pages are served in SSL (Secure Socket Layer) mode.
Nowadays when you lose data that is not the end of your life. We all understand that data can be lost in one way or another as in here. Some of these companies are very efficient in carrying out this work of data recovery. Such companies have developed very comprehensive strategies to overcome the woes of data recovery. They can recover data across an array of devices and even all types of operating devices. These companies can recover data from any kind of laptop, server, network, desktop or storage device imaginable. One of the most reliable companies is Kroll Ontrack. This company is on the payroll of most Fortune 100 companies in the USA. This is a gesture, which shows that it is extremely reliable.
Professional data recovery usually takes place in clean rooms like this.
The above named companies have a reputation for proper industrial security. In the past, it was recognized by the USA Defense Department for the last 15 years. From this kind of reputation, I recommend to you this company to solve all you data recovery problems.
Hard drives can lose data due to them crashing, being broken, if they are dropped, damage by fire, water damage, virus damage and a crushed personal computer. Always look for a company that can manage to recover data from all types of hard disk manufacturers.
Since data recovery is an action that occurs impromptu, that is it occurs when people lose data unexpectedly there is need to take precaution against the exercise by putting up a stable back up against complete losing of data when the system crashes or when some form of misfortune begets our machines. All kinds of data should be stored in hard copies as well as soft copies so as to minimize the risk of completely losing data in case the hard drive loses the data abruptly. On the other hand, we can minimize the risk by storing it in as many mediums as possible as a safety precaution. For instance, the data can be stored in tapes, compact discs, diskettes, hard discs and any other data storage media for recovery whenever need arises. These precautions will go a long to reduce the costs and inconveniences that are associated with data recovery process.
We should also develop the habit of servicing our machines on a regular basis as a maintenance practice so as to minimize chances of breaking down. The maintenance involves installing anti-malware programs on computers as well regular maintenance and servicing of computer hardware to avoid complicating the situation.
How do you bring UNIX client-server applications to Novell NetWare networks? In the past, users have had two alternatives: run Portable NetWare (now called NetWare for UNIX) on a UNIX server, or have separate servers on the net running NetWare and UNIX. The first way is slow; the second, expensive. Now, NetFrame Systems offers a new approach: a multi-processor server that runs NetWare on one processor and UNIX on the others. NetFrame went public in June, the first “superserver” company to do so. I recently visited the firm in Milpitas, CA, to observe its innovative architecture. What I saw could well become a mainstream solution for UNIX on Novell networks.
NetFrame was rounded by Carl Amdahl, son of Amdahl Corp. founder, Gene Amdahl. The younger Amdahl, quite literally, learned mainframe architecture design at his father’s knee. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Carl rounded two suppliers of large-scale systems: Magnuson and Trilogy. (Magnuson enjoyed a successful IPO; Trilogy was a huge debacle.) He rounded NetFrame in 1987. Inspired by the IBM System/370, NetFrame reduced the I/O channel and other elements of mainframe architecture to VLSI and adapted them to an Intel processor. The resulting file server has very high I/O throughput while running standard shrink-wrapped NetWare or OS/2 LAN Manager.
In addition to this main “file server” processor, a NetFrame can have up to four application processors, also Intel. The file server and application processors are like independent file and application servers on a network, with a key difference: they communicate not through the network, but through shared memory. Thus, application requests to the file server can be made much faster than they would between conventional servers. Adding UNIX servers “on the net” becomes a simple matter of adding processor boards.
Univel UnixWare, SunSoft Solaris 2.0, and NetWare with NetWare Loadable Modules (NLMs) can be run on the application processors. As many as four copies of UNIX and/or NetWare may be run concurrently.
The NetFrame approach will be attractive to end users who want to bring UNIX applications to NetWare environments. It will also allow UNIX ISVs to address the NetWare market without having to convert UNIX applications into NetWare’s proprietary NLM format. NetFrame servers are available today with NetWare or 0S/2 LAN Manager. The two flavors of UNIX will be available next year.
Anyone who regularly reads this column knows l have spent much of the past year calling on the UNIX community to pay serious attention to desktop UNIX. Not only have lexhorted vendors to develop small, friendly, shrink-wrapped versions of UNIX, but I have discussed at length the market effects on companies such as Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), if UNIX does or does not meet the challenge.
The good news is that UNIX vendors have perceived the same need ldid and have understood that the desktop UNIX must look and feel a whole lot different than its predecessors. USL and Univel have made surprisingly giant strides in this direction. SCO, in its own way, has continued to improve its high-end product, ODT. What Sun is doing, other than standardizing on SVR4, is open to conjecture, but the Solaris’s portability to Intel systems shows an appreciation of this platform.
For 1992, UNIX’s understanding of the strategic importance of the desktop rates very good. The next question is: Can UNIX market its wares?
The marketing arena is critical. Here, the main opponent is Microsoft and its vast marketing resources. For example, the recent UNIX Expo in New York had more vendors and more attendees than ever. The mood was by and large upbeat. By all accounts, one would say that despite the recession, the UNIX community is thriving. Yet there was a malaise. Everyone was alarmed about Microsoft’s Windows NT. Its approaching footsteps could be heard.
In this issue, John Chisholm (see “Currents”) offers a series of reasons why NT is better technology than UNIX; he then opines that the competition with NT will benefit UNIX. I could not possibly disagree more. I do not believe NT is better (or even close), and lam most unconvinced that head-to-head competition will benefit UNIX.
Let’s examine technology. After months of saying the opposite, Microsoft has backed away from its claims that NT is multiuser. NT is not; it is multithreaded, however. (This means that NT’s threat to SCO-style sites is greatly lessened.) What networking will be built into NT, other than Microsoft’s less-than-successful LAN Manager, needs to be seen and tested. It certainly won’t have the blessing of archrival Novell nor the field testing of UNlX nets. Finally, Microsoft’s admission that it will not be fully compatible with existing MS-DOS and Windows applications means that even a smooth binary migration is not possible.
Add to this that NT will be validated by only six months of beta test (as opposed to years of testing for UNIX) and you start to see a product that looks fairly meek technologically. Ain’t no one in Redmond dragging users into the new age of operating systems.
As a result, it is difficult to believe that anyone would abandon UNIX systems to migrate to a manifestly less robust NT. Once the investment has been made in UNIX technology and the concept of open systems, abandoning it all for a closed, less technologically advanced solution makes little sense. NT will not change UNIX’s existing base.
What NT will do is divert potential customers from UNIX. Since UNIX, like all industries, needs new customers to survive, the threat of NT is that it will slow the growth of UNIX, just when UNIX really had begun to compete in the business arena. How much of a threat this is will be the topic of my column next month.
As NT boldly goes where only Unix went before, hopes are high for a distributed computing environment that will work happily with existing PC hardware and software. But can NT really supplant Unix, with its 25 years of proven network reliability?
Until now, serious networked applications users have turned to Unix to find tools capable of doing the job. Unix may still not have found favour on the desktop, but it was designed to be both multitasking and multi-user — making it great for the network, despite problems getting Unix and PCs to co-operate.
This paradigm is now under threat. The growth of Microsoft Windows, along with the company’s promise to deliver the 32-bit NT operating system, has raised users’ hopes that a genuine alternative to Unix is close at hand — with backward PC software compatibility.
Yet Microsoft will be at least four months late with NT. The product is a lynchpin of the company’s future success and its push into higher computing. Even taking into account the announced delay, NT has been under development for some time. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s CEO, recently revealed that the NT project actually started before IBM and Microsoft began joint work on OS/2. As one analyst said in a recent issue of PC User, Unix has been around for a quarter century and is only now coming up to scratch. Microsoft will have an almost impossible task emulating that progress with NT in a much shorter time.
So, although many corporates are basing their future plans on Windows and NT, it may take years before they have a robust enough environment to ignore Unix for good. This raises some questions about the immediate server software buying plans of large corporates. With so many pledging support for NT, often because the software comes from Microsoft and fits so closely with Windows, it will be interesting to see how they cope with waiting until NT is ready to do the job well.
Microsoft has always intended NT — written in the C language – to be the version of Unix Gates actually wanted, instead of the versions offered by older vendors. And with companies such as Sun Microsystems working hard to allow Windows applications to run on Unix without a trace of Microsoft systems software on the machine, it seems that Gates’ giant could be treading on difficult ground.
The struggle NT will face getting onto the corporate server was illustrated recently by a Unix International report, which showed that Unix and NT will be strong on the server and desktop, respectively. While there will be some crossover, this independent survey showed that Unix will continue to meet the demands of users who want a clean and reliable distributed computing system.
One significant applications area where Microsoft has to show convincing support is relational databases. Many servers on networks are set up merely to house large data repositories, liberating hard disk space on the client desktops. Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix and other high-end database vendors have developed clean, fast products which principally run on Unix. Microsoft’s Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface, which will slowly be built into its products, must have the support of these vendors. Microsoft already has a significant alliance with Oracle over ODBC and is wooing the others. The ODBC connection will allow information to be shared between databases and other programs in the Windows environment.
Yet Oracle has also demonstrated its database breaking new ground in transaction processing, working with Compaq hardware and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) Unix. In fact, Compaq and SCO have signed a European OEM agreement to bundle their products. Paul Oliver, SCO’s strategic accounts manager, predicts that 30 to 50 per cent of Compaq’s new ProSignia XL servers will ship with SCO Unix. SCO also has full XPG.4 branding from the X/Open organization, one of the highest open systems markers. Microsoft remains scornful of X/Open and similar bodies, but may find this attitude disadvantageous when it comes to selling into the upper computing echelons.
It has always been clear that Microsoft’s plan to tackle both the front and back-ends of the operating system world is ambitious. In PC User recently, Microsoft’s vice-president for systems strategy, Jonathan Lazarus, argued that product shipment volumes speak for themselves. This is all very well, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Unix might never be a major force on the desktop, but it won’t lose its customers in the server sector easily either. So, the minority of Unix users on Intel-based machines pinpointed by Microsoft are really a significant population of MIS decision makers. They are more conservative, have more to lose, and may not be so taken with the revolutionary spirit that helped Microsoft conquer the PC market.
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