Conference ricks::dechips

    
    +          IBM WITHDRAWS WINDOWS NT (POWERPC EDITION)
    
    As recently as November 19 that IBM issued an Ivory (customer
    letter) trumpeting the launch of Windows NT 4.0 for the PowerPC
    but this week, a mere two months later, the company puts out
    another Ivory saying "effective immediately, IBM is withdrawing
    Windows NT 4.0 (PowerPC Edition) from marketing and will not
    ship the product as originally announced in Software
    Announcement 296- 454, dated November 19, 1996." And in what
    must be among the shortest statements of direction on record:
    "In addition, IBM does not intend to complete fulfillment of
    Statements of General Direction regarding Windows NT (PowerPC
    Edition), including those announced in Software Announcement
    295-267 on June 19, 1995" and "IBM does not intend to continue
    further Windows NT development for the RS/6000."
                                                           

    +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
    | <http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/970127/tech/stories/apple_1.html>    |
    |                                                                      |
    | Apple Mulls closer Intel, Microsoft Ties - Paper                     |
    |                                                                      |
    | NEW YORK - Computer maker Apple computer is considering closer ties  |
    | with semiconductor power Intel and software giant Microsoft, the New |
    | York Times reported Sunday.                                          |
    |                                                                      |
    | Company executives told the newspaper Apple was weighing a line of   |
    | machines that run on Intel microprocessors.                          |
    |                                                                      |
    | ...                                                                  |
    |                                                                      |
    | [Amelio] told the Times that within two or three years, "I would     |
    | like to have the most compatible personal computer in the industry,  |
    | able to run more software than anyone -- period."                    |
    |                                                                      |
    | ...                                                                  |
    +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Now Windows NT on the PowerPC is officially dead:

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    MICROSOFT DECISION GIVES BOOST TO DIGITAL
    Boston Globe, 02/08/1997

    Executives at Digital Equpment Corporation yesterday celebrated the
    announcement from Microsoft Corp. that it would stop making its
    Windows NT operating system for computers based on the PowerPC chip.

    ...
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

They can celebrate all they want, but I bet what John Q. Public is thinking is

    MIPS      ->  Strike 1

    PowerPC   ->  Strike 2

    Alpha     ->  Strike 3 ... Digital just doesn't know it yet

and RISC is out!

    * MICROSOFT announced new data showing that its Windows NT Server
      network operating system was the world's best-selling server
      operating system in 1996. According to the latest sales report
      from International Data Corp., sales of Windows NT Server grew by
      85% in 1996, or about six times the rate of Novell NetWare.
      Another analysis said the rapid customer adoption of Windows NT
      Server has driven the overall growth for network operating
      systems. (PR Newswire 01:08 PM ET 02/10/97) For the full text
      story, see
      http://www.merc.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=1479525-c31

    Re: .15

    Windows NT Server may have been the best-selling server OS, but those
    IDC numbers certainly don't prove it.  Without knowing the base sales
    on which the percentage increases were calculated, there is no way to
    determine which OS sold more total copies.

    For instance, if Microsoft sold 2,000 copies of NT Server in 1995 and
    3,700 copies in 1996, that would be an 85% increase.  Now assume that
    Novell sold 50,000 units in 1995 and had a 14% increase in sales (85/
    6).  Their total sales would be 57,000 units - making them the "best-
    seller" despite a lower growth rate.

    These are completely bogus numbers - but should illustrate the point.

    re .16: if you have a look at the article, there's a bit more detail.
    
    According to an IDC forecast (of April last yer) NT should sell about
    720,000 servers in '96, Novell about 1,097,000. I have no idea what the
    real numbers were. NT has overtaken UNIX in any case.
    

    Updated numbers for 1996 from mid-January (IDC):
    
    NT Servers   	720,000
    Unix servers        636,000
    
    NT clients		3,008,000
    Unix clients	  843,000
    
    Other researchers have other figures..

>    NT Servers   	720,000
>    Unix servers        636,000

IMHO:

	What ever the numbers are, before we can make business, we must 
	understand that these numbers don't describe the market segments,
	and before we understand the segmentation well enough it is next
	to impossible make strong conclusions (rewenue, margin etc) of
	different areas.

	Also judging segments by cold numbers WILL lead to misjudgements
	and wrong decisions. It's easy to say for example that "PC's have
	taken the world and have outselled RISC servers", this has been
	true for years, and NT itself does not change this. The real
	content and value for us is to uderstand how SEGMENTS develope
	(NT vs UNIX is NOT a segment!!!) and what drives customer 
	investements in near future and long term. 

	I just want to stress one point: With Windows NT only, Digital would
	be dead quicker than you imagine. Even number of units is satisfactory
	and in some SEGMENTS exceeds the number of units of for example
	UNIX servers we sell, the Windows NT market is still in low cost
	high volume systems, when UNIX market is mostly mid/high end 
	solutions with totally different prices and margins. By the way,
	before someone trys to challenge this, yes, there is market
	demand for High End Windows NT systems (we could have sold
	1st 8000 series WNT servers at '95 TurboLaser announcement ;) but
	size of that market is significantly lower TODAY than the UNIX
	market size in same area. Price difference between Intel and
	Alpha based high end servers can be even surpricingly small,
	but the demand is still too low.

	About the NT Servers: We must sell huge numbers of NT servers to
	be profitable AND maintain Digital ~60k employee company. It would
	be same if we'd try to survive selling 1000A class machines only
	with 4000 series "boost and support". Alpha product line alone
	on NT world would be suicide, we need strong and coherent
	Intel/Alpha message to be key player in markets:

	Re: MIPS - PowerPC .... Alpha? w/ Windows NT support...

	You're right, customers are asking this, and that's why
	you should point out sources like:

	http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1997/Feb97/PowerPr.htm

	It focuses on PowerPC, but is very favourable towards Alpha :)

		-jari


	

    The raw unit numbers *do* say something.  Maybe not everything.
    
    Yes, you need the complete numbers to understand things.  While I've
    seen parts of the numbers from time-to-time, like many people, I have
    to make guesses about the real picture.
    
    What has been put to me by a number of better informed individuals is
    that:  NT is losing money, but the slope of the curve is towards
    increasing volume, and profitability.  VMS is making money, but it's
    growth and profits are flat.  Unix is losing money, and its curves are
    flat.
    
    So, religion aside, the business folks are milking VMS for all it's
    worth (a slash & burn strategy is well under way), and we continue to
    focus on NT assuming that if the curve is extended to infinity (a
    questionable assumption) - is a growing and profitable segment.  UNIX
    is being marginalized into niches where the NT business has not yet
    caught up (as is VMS being marginalized 2-3 years ahead of the UNIX
    business).
    
    If you want to slice this all from a different perspective, you need to
    take a look around at what drove the UNIX market:
    
    	- Cheap software
    	- Lots of programmers (UNIX was universal at most colleges)
    	- Leverage over vendor for HW price
    
    At first blush, this was great, but as time went on, customers and
    vendors find themnselves just as vendor locked as they were with VMS or
    MVS.
    
    Windows 95/Windows NT provide the basis for delivering what UNIX only
    promised:
    
    	- Cheap *universal* software
    	- Lots of programmers
    	- Leverage over vendor for HW price
    
    When Windows was confined to DOS PC, it could not compete with UNIX for
    the high-end applications.  It now can.
    
    This is *bad* for companies who sell HW.  We are now all racing towards
    a real commodity business.  No more customer lock-ins (like VMS).
    
    Unfortunatey, there is *nothing* inherent in UNIX, VMS, AIX, MAC-OS,
    etc, that cannot be provided on a Windows based platform - given enough
    time and demand.
    

        re .-1

    That was the most clear and concisely written history of what
    has happened in our industry I have read for awhile.  I think you hit
    it right on.

    I think the business hierachy at Digital must see it the same way. 
    They are probably praying we can profit on hardware and perhaps
    services.  Someone has to supply hardware though.  The question is can
    we do that efficiently and profitably?   

    The last five years however says hardware is a tough business to make
    any money in.  Bill Gates chose the more sure thing it seems.

    The other day, I was in a computer chat room.  One of the people there
    insisted that Alpha would not be supported by Windows NT after V4.0.

    I tried to correct him, but he kept insisting that he was right, I was
    wrong, "and if you don't believe me, ask DEC Sales & Support".

    He said he had gotten a letter from DEC saying Windows NT would not be
    supported on his AlphaStation 255 (I think that's the model...).

    Then he said DEC cancelled development of Alpha NT (!!!).  He may have
    said the reason was that Microsoft asked too much money; I know that's
    supposed to have been the reason IBM and Motorola dropped NT/PPC work.

    How do we counter FUD/misinformation like this?

>    The last five years however says hardware is a tough business to make
>    any money in.  Bill Gates chose the more sure thing it seems.

Many of Intel's customers are having trouble making money, true.
But Intel itself seems to be raking it in.

>>  Many of Intel's customers are having trouble making money, true.
>>  But Intel itself seems to be raking it in.

That's because chip-making has formidable barriers of entry, and Intel has
a near-monopoly on the x86 market.

Anyone with a bit of seed capital can start a clone business, building PCs
out of the components you see in the back of Computer Shopper.  So you get
thousands of vendors, and cut-throat competition among all of them (except
for the top brand names).

    Not to ignore .22, but rather to continue on Fred's good comments, 
    I think that many smart companies today are generating margin from 
    more than one source towards the same end customer so that they
    can (when competition dictates) share the margins across a larger
    piece of business.  Microsoft gets the OS and applications so
    they can be more aggressive in that application market where their
    product isn't cutting it alone.  Micron made memory chips and
    PC's so they could afford to be more aggressive in the commodity
    desktop (too bad for them, the memory market dropped through the
    floor!).   Intel does CPU chips, peripherals, and now they can 
    control and dictate the high volume motherboard business - and they're 
    certainly not hurting...
    
    I'd like to think that Digital is in a great spot now, with the
    diversity - we make CPUs (both high performance and low power winners), 
    servers, OSs, Networks, and do services (to name a few).   One 
    problem is that we still havn't aggreed to let these margins spread 
    across the true "we".  Instead we have had seperate business groups, 
    competing sales, and different delivery channels.  Hardware isn't 
    dead as a business, but we've got to act a lot smarter.   I'm seeing
    encouraging signs of corporation at the sales incentive level but
    it sure would be sweet to get back the momentum that was building
    before last Q4's slam...  We've lost a lot of time.
    
    Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have a monopoly like Wintel!
    
    sigh....  mark
                                                       

>>  Windows 95/Windows NT provide the basis for delivering what UNIX only
>>  promised:
>>  
>>  	- Cheap *universal* software
>>  	- Lots of programmers
>>  	- Leverage over vendor for HW price

    Linux running on PC and Mac clones may deliver most of what commercial
    Unix products did not.

    Cheap Universal software == binary compatability == shrink wrapped SW
    == Windows.
    
    Linux is a great new toy for Universities, and for the last generation
    of O/S tinkerers.  Don't get me wrong here, I think Linux is cool.  But
    it isn't what your secretary will run on her desk, what your kids will
    learn on in elementary school, and what you will run down to buy SW
    for at the local Wal-Mart.
    
    Now, I'm sure people will be quick to point out anecdotal evidence that
    there are commercial users that have started to use Linux... but I
    don't think it's going to be much more than a sub-culture of true
    believers (just like there will always be Mac fanatics, and VMS
    fanatics) that will use Linux for commercial, bet-your-business work.
    
    PCs and Windows *is* what most small business bet-their-business on. 
    They keeps their books, do their payroll, and all of the day-to-day
    operation of the business.  Everyone from my plumber to my tax
    accountant.  And it's what mid-sized, and large customers will also
    start to move to with NT servers combined with their PC desktops.
    
    Resistance is futile ;-)  About the best attempt to find a way out of a
    Microsoft future was the SUN JAVA and Oracle Network Computer strategy.
    But it looks like MS recognized the threat, and is heading it off by
    embracing it, and making it their own.
    
    

   imo, one of the best industry trends is the "thin client" concept.
   I don't care who makes'em but select digital (alpha servers) to
   supply the compute power and select digital (storageworks) to
   supply your mega data requirements and select digital to supply
   your high availability requirements (clusters). That's where
   the margins are anyway.

   These desktops PCs (wintel) are a pain. And I'm a seasoned user.
   Me thinks digital should really be pushing this trend. And I think
   digital has a very good message and solution.

   Not to mention that thin clients may finally bring an end to
   the o/s religious war campaign. (yawn)

   fwiw

    If you define "cheap universal software" as == shrink-wrapped binaries
    available from many retail outlets, then only (DOS, Windows)/Intel and
    MacOS/(68k, PowerPC) qualify.

    Linux isn't what I'd recommend for every secretary's desktop, but for
    workstations and servers, it is often a realistic alternative.  Unlike
    NT, it is free, and doesn't lock you into one source of OS support.

,27>    Resistance is futile ;-)  About the best attempt to find a way out 

  fya:	http://www.gvc.dec.com/digital-at-cern/hobbs/borg.html

.29>    [LINUX] is free, and doesn't lock you into one source of OS support.

  More like it locks you into 0 sources of OS support.

-cw

    
    Being  member of the Order of Operating System Developers, in the
    Priesthood of Computer Programmers...  I can only wish Linux all the
    luck in the world.  Windows and Windows NT have the likely potential
    to kill most O/S development, short of CS masters thesis research, and
    work in Redmond.
    
    Linux is the latest example of the Stallman concept of free software,
    charge for documentation, training, and support.  If Linux was
    binary compatable with Win32, it might have a chance.  None of this
    Windows-on-X11 cruft, translators, emulators, but a real, reverse
    engineered, unencumbered Win32...  it might keep MS honest.  Of course,
    it would also attract an expensive legal assault by MS as well.
    
    

> .29>    [LINUX] is free, and doesn't lock you into one source of OS support.

>   More like it locks you into 0 sources of OS support.

Some would question the level of support available from Microsoft.  Maybe
not so for corporations, but for the little guy it's just not worth it.

Then again, with so many MS users, someone in your neighborhood is likely
to be able to help.  That's the same as it is with Linux, except the
numbers are fewer (but the users perhaps better informed? and better able
to understand/fix it, having sources available).

    Linux may be free-ish (my local s/w shop now advertises Caldera Open
    Linux for �40) but WABI is advertised for �150+. That's a lot of money
    to have to pay for the inevitable occasions when a Wintel application
    is *required* even if Linux could offer 98% of the rest.

    Linux is OK for OS tinkering (don't forget that NetBSD also runs on
    Alpha) but our customers run applications. I don't see SAP, Oracle,
    Informix, Sybase, etc releasing products for the free Unix clones so
    the argument is dead. 
    
    Stephen.
    Unix Tech Support

    re .33: ...and add a few other commercial add-ons (Motif, ...) it'll be
    more expensive than Windows NT server.
    

Re: .34

This is not necessarily in support of Linux ... but I have seen
applications at least in the CAE/CAD space advertised with Linux support.

Stating that Linux is a toy --> Linux is dead, sounds familiar to a certain
Intel architecture in the early 1980's, running an OS by a company that had
experience making BASIC interpreters.  Linux might not have a future as a
serious contender, but there's much more to the argument than simply that.

    i believe/hope that the future is multiuser WNT servers (w/Citrix
    winframe) and thin clients like Winterms from Wyse, NCD etc.
    
    This at least for all the millions of non-power users of PCs
    i currently have a lan with five PCs at home (WNT, W95, WIN311 and even
    a rainbow) and i'm just fed-up of "managing the fucking thing"
    
    Bruno

    re .37:
    
    >i currently have a lan with five PCs at home
    
    Well that's your own fault, Bruno... :-) sipping a glass of Sangiovese
    is much more relaxing than managing a network.
    
    Seriously though, I think something alonmg the lines of WinFrame must
    be the answer, at least in corporate environments (though the Citrix
    stuff leaves a lot to be desired; we have one in production use at the
    office, it's still at 3.51 and not terribly stable). FWIW, there's a
    new one in the game, NTERPRISE (see www.exodustech.com). They claim
    it's an unmodified NT (though the fact that they aren't on NT 4.0 yet
    either makes me a bit suspicious).
    

+                    POWERPC - A FALSE DAWN? 

PowerPC. A coup that became a fiasco. Will it degenerate into 
farce as the future of Apple looks bleaker than ever? Timothy 
Prickett analyzes the current players and their strategies. 
From Multimedia Futures, a sister publication.

Like everybody else that staked money on the PowerPC, Martin 
Burns, manager for Motorola's European operations, is concerned 
about the desktop market in general and Apple in particular. 
"I think PowerPC is pretty well positioned for network 
computers," he says, "and any desktop that doesn't come from 
Intel." As for Apple, he says that Motorola will do all it can 
to help Apple sell its own and clone MacOS, and he is adamant 
that Rhapsody, Apple's forthcoming operating system based on 
the NeXtStep object-oriented environment, will run on PowerPC 
chips. "Apple will never move to Intel. PowerPC still has the 
best price/performance and multimedia performance in the 
market. If anything, Rhapsody will couple Apple more closely to 
PowerPC,"he said. However, not everyone shares his point of 
view. "NeXt runs on Intel chips, not PowerPC, and Apple is not 
committed, long-term, to the PowerPC," declares Stephen Smith, 
an analyst and managing director at Paine Webber. "IBM promised 
Apple that it could deliver twice the performance of Intel 
chips and it dropped the ball. PowerPC has been a technical 
failure as well as a marketing failure." Even so, why would 
Apple risk a chip change at this stage and put Rhapsody on 
Intel chips? According to Smith, the move would be less 
disruptive than many might assume. 70% of the current installed 
Macintosh base is still using the Motorola 68K chip, he says. 
And, of the remaining 30%, the majority of those customers are 
still running 68K programs emulated on the PowerPC platform. 
"Frankly, PowerPC is a niche player," says Christopher Goodhue, 
research director of end user computing at Gartner Group. 
Goodhue expects IBM to sell a fair number of its forthcoming G3 
PowerPC Unix workstations. He says that IBM will have to push 
its new Windows NT Pentium Pro workstations a lot harder, 
adding that "The volumes are going to be from users who want to 
spend less money than they would on Unix workstation - or users 
who want to run NT applications." Goodhue believes that IBM can 
make some headway, but he is less optimistic about Apple's 
prospects with the PowerPC machines. "The Mac market share of 
desktops is shrinking, although the Mac clone market is 
growing. Apple's whole strategy lacks coherence and 
credibility. Copland didn't play out, and we have to wait two 
more years for Rhapsody. Even where Apple has the advantage - a 
better fit and finish - Wintel is good enough for 95% of the 
market. In 1997, being different is not being better." Lamar 
Potts, vice president of operating system and technology 
licensing at Apple Computer, believes that the situation is not 
as dire as the industry watchers are suggesting. He argues 
there is no confusion about Apple's support for the PowerPC. 
"The PowerPC is our platform of choice... and we plan to use it 
up to 2000, with more general plans beyond that." Rhapsody, he 
says, will run on the PowerPC, which does not preclude Apple 
from examining other processors. As to the immediate issue of 
selling as many Macs as possible - Potts adds: "Apple has to 
turn the Macintosh around. For one thing, it is hard for Apple 
to invest in moving Mac technology forward if we don't get the 
units up." In the wake of Heidi Roizen's departure - she is the 
the Silicon Valley hotshot hired only last year to cultivate 
independent software developers for the Mac - Apple is 
particularly sensitive about its software problems. "Software 
developers write programs based on seats and driving up that 
number will make independent software vendors more enthusiastic 
about MacOS," says Potts. He points out that Apple is making 
moves to address the needs of personal computer buyers, who are 
looking at features and price just as much as they are 
software. According to Apple and Motorola Computer Group - it 
sells embedded systems, clone Macs and motherboards to Apple 
clone suppliers - key to the Mac revival, will be the Common 
Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP). Aka, the PowerPC Platform. 

                       CHRP to the rescue  

CHRP is a set of hardware and software standards that enables 
Mac clones to use common personal computer components and be 
compatible with real Macs. The original intent was to support 
AIX, as well as MacOS and Windows NT on the CHRP, but NT on the 
PowerPC is finished and AIX is deemed inappropriate for most 
customers. The CHRP is expected to be finalised in May. Both 
Apple and Motorola think this will be instrumental in helping 
establish a viable and large Macintosh clone market. "This will 
be the first time people can really make clone Macs," says 
Potts. "Apple has only a dozen MacOS licensees. Intel has 
somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 partners pushing its 
products. If we can get a fraction of these vendors to go with 
MacOS and CHRP, we will get the Mac base to grow." Apple says 
that it predicts the number of MacOS licensees will be in the 
hundreds by the end of this year, and as a bare minimum, it 
expects the clone market to triple from 1996's figures of 
200,000 unit shipments. Those numbers sound low, even to the 
Motorola Computer Group, which sold 44,000 of its StarMax 
Macintosh clones in the three weeks following announcement last 
November. It is still selling high-end Mac clones at that clip. 
The Group not only sells Macintoshes, but like IBM, it is 
permitted to sub-license the Mac operating system out to other 
parties. According to Dennis Saloky, marketing director at 
Motorola Computer Group, the company has four MacOS 
sub-licensees today and expects to double that number this 
year, and again the year after. He says that the Group wants to 
build a $1 billion systems business by the year 2000, and that 
CHRP, which will cut at least 10% out of the cost of building a 
Mac clone, will go a long way toward bringing Macintoshes into 
parity with Windows. 

                          Full Circle  

Not everyone is convinced that the CHRP will save MacOS and 
PowerPC on the desktop. "The future of PowerPC on the desktop 
is tied to Apple, and that is not a pretty picture," says 
Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst for microprocessors at 
Dataquest. "Apple has not convinced me that it will grow the 
Mac market, which we see flat this year and shrinking next 
year. As far as I can tell, Apple is not growing the base, it's 
just shifting where Mac buyers get their computers. Everybody's 
eating at the same table." Brookwood is convinced that the Mac 
base will continue to dwindle, but he holds out one hope that 
for Apple that may give it enough time and money to get its 
Rhapsody plans in order. Some people believe that a Mac upgrade 
cycle could help prop up sales for Apple in the near-term. But 
even with that, Brookwood says he is still pessimistic about 
the PowerPC's prospects in bringing in new customers or 
attracting software developers. "The Mac clone business is 
different from the Intel clone business," he says. "The Wintel 
market is driven by Microsoft and Intel, and no one is worried 
about their long-term prospects. If an Acer or a Gateway 2000 
evaporates, it has very little effect on the personal computer 
market as a whole. But if Apple goes down, the whole Mac clone 
business goes down with it. The difference is extremely 
important." Dataquest is equally unimpressed with the record of 
IBM's PowerPC efforts. "It doesn't have a good high-end PowerPC 
workstation, and at the low-end, Sun is running roughshod over 
IBM," says Brookwood. "IBM's PowerPC server business is a good 
one, but Unix is a stagnant market. Most of the growth in the 
midrange will be driven by Windows NT, which PowerPC no longer 
supports. Many argue that Unix variants such as AIX are better 
operating systems than NT, but Microsoft has the resources to 
change that, and it will." None of this means that either IBM 
or Motorola will abandon PowerPC. "I don't expect PowerPC to go 
away any time soon," says Linley Gwennap, editor of The 
Microprocessor Report. "IBM and Motorola will continue to 
invest heavily in PowerPC chips, and for the most part they 
seem to be keeping pace with Intel in performance. IBM is very 
committed to PowerPC for both the RS/6000 and the AS/400. It 
will continue to invest regardless of Apple." So where does all 
that leave PowerPC? In just about the same place that the 
Motorola 68K was during the years before the PowerPC was 
announced. Before 1991, the 68K chip was used as the main brain 
in Apple computers, and it is likely that 68K circuits were the 
basis of the CMOS processors in IBM's AS/400 and 9370 mainframe 
systems. Motorola still has a very strong embedded processor 
market and is looking to adopt faster technology. The real 
difference this time around is that Apple is much weaker, and 
that can be attributed to the unremitting efforts of Intel and 
Microsoft. If IBM and Motorola had pipped Intel to the post, 
launching speedy chips, the odds are that Apple was still 
likely to stumble with Copland and fail to foster a lively clone
market. All the excitement over the PowerPC effort and the 
fight for desktop control has amounted to nothing much. The 
Intel-Microsoft tag team has taken out the IBM-Apple-Motorola 
triumvirate without any real blood being spilt.*

                                 

>            <<< Note 618.39 by ROM01::OLD_CIPOLLA "Bruno Cipolla" >>>
>                          -< Powerpc... long from cg >-

Bashing Apple articles are more common that bashing DEC, and even less
factual.

DEC should be so lucky to have its VMS customers 'just running their
old software in emulation'.  PowerMacs run ALL the old 68K code
perfectly in emulation, and much faster than the old 68K machines
ever dreamed.  this is a problem?

Its true that native apps run faster?  This is news?

>"IBM and Motorola will continue to 
>invest heavily in PowerPC chips, and for the most part they 
>seem to be keeping pace with Intel in performance. 

Keeping pace?  Apple just announced a 300MHz PowerMac...double the performance
of a 200MHz Pentium/MMX.  No Intel based laptop can touch a PowerPC laptop.
There are 450-500MHz PowerMacs coming out soon.  this is keeping pace.

We in DEC should understand how difficult it is to be steamrolled by
Intel/uSoft.   Apple is right along side us getting crushed.  But I hope
no one here believes all the mistatements in this article.
bob

    The 300 Mhz 603e is a nice low-power chip, but it's nothing to
    write home about in terms of performance. Quoting from the press
    release:
    
    The 300 MHz PowerPC 603e microprocessor has an estimated SPECint95
    of 7.4 and an estimated SPECfp95 of 6.1.
    
    Compare that to 6.41/4.66 for the Pentium-MMX/200 I don't see
    a factor of 2 (it's 15% and 31%, respectively). In the non-laptop
    market (which is what Apple announced), you have to fight the
    Pentium Pro (and soon Pentium II):
    
    Pentium Pro 180/256		7.28	5.59
    Pentium Pro 200/256		8.20	6.21
    Pentium Pro 200/512		8.58	6.48
    
    So announcing a chip that falls somewhere between a Pentium Pro
    180 and Pentium Pro 200 in a much more aggressive (0.25um) process
    technology is not my idea of excitement. 

>    Pentium Pro 180/256		7.28	5.59
>    Pentium Pro 200/256		8.20	6.21
>    Pentium Pro 200/512		8.58	6.48

    The PowerPC chip comparable to the Pentium Pro would
    be the 604e, not the 603e.  Where did you find the
    benchmarks for the PowerPC?
    thanks
    bob

    The PowerPC 603e/300 number is from the Motorola press release. The
    SPEC numbers for the PPC 604e/200 are:
    
    Motorola MVME2604-2161		9.34   8.92
    Motorola PowerStackII Pro3000/200   8.00   6.31
    IBM RS/6000 43P-140 		7.22   5.23
    
    All of these results are from the official SPEC submissions