Apparently-To: dectei-l@ubvm.bitnet
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.dectei-l
Date:         Wed, 18 Nov 1992 15:15:22 PST
              <DECTEI-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         ELLEN MINTER * 297-2461 * EDUCATION MARKETING
              <minter@MR4DEC.ENET.DEC.COM>
Subject:      Press Release - Alpha 1

                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:      EST
                                        From:     Ellen Minter @MRO
                                                  MINTER.ELLEN
                                        Dept:     Worldwide Education IBU
                                        Tel No:   297-2461

TO:  Remote Addressee                     ( _decwrl::"dectei-l%ubvm.bitnet" )


Subject: Press Release - Alpha



          Sarah Miller (508) 264-5420

           or
          David J. Bouffard (415) 617-3500


          ... 21st Century Computing Starts Today







                       DIGITAL INTRODUCES ALPHA AXP COMPUTING
                     Meeting Customer Needs with New Systems, Software,
                       Applications, Services, and Business Practices


          BOSTON, MASS.  -- November 10, 1992 -- Digital Equipment
          Corporation today introduced Alpha AXP computing: a
          complete set of systems, software, applications, and services,
          with new business practices, that provides a universal platform
          enabling unlimited open computing possibilities.

          Alpha AXP computing -- the first advanced 64-bit, twenty-first
          century architecture -- is a major technology milestone for the
          computing industry. For Digital, it reflects a renewed
          determination to help customers succeed. Alpha AXP computing
          enables users:
          o To run today's commercial and scientific applications faster,
            at lower cost,
          o To use today's applications in more innovative ways, such as
            downsizing   mainframe applications to client/server
            networks, and
          o To explore fully advanced applications such as virtual
            reality, imaging, multimedia, artificial intelligence,
            language translation, advanced simulation, and voice
            recognition.

          "Today is the beginning of a new revolution in computing, " said
          Robert B. Palmer, Digital President and Chief Executive Officer.
          "With nearly limitless 64-bit  computing power, and the
          applications of three major operating systems, the path ahead
          leads wherever the imagination can take it. Alpha AXP computing
          will   enable customers to invent profitable new ways to serve
          people."

          "The products and services announced today mark the next phase
          of our Alpha AXP roll-out, which demonstrates that Digital
          satisfies customer needs today, and has the partners, products,
          services, and commitment to continue to satisfy their needs well
          into the twenty-first century," he added.

          Announced today were:
             o   The first universal platform -- Alpha AXP -- offering a
            choice of three open software environments, a choice of open
            standards, and a choice of hardware and network interconnects.

             o   A family of Alpha AXP systems, ranging from the
            industry's most powerful desktop workstation priced under
            $15,000 to the industry's most powerful mainframe-class server
            priced at $316,000.
             o   A comprehensive software suite of languages, tools, and
            utilities, and commitment from more than 1,000 vendors to port
            more than 2,000 applications to the Alpha AXP platform.
            o    A complete new portfolio of services to help customers
            gain the benefits of Alpha AXP technology for their existing
            environment and for new applications.
            o    Enhancements to Digital's Alpha-ready upgrade program to
            make it attractive for customers to buy VAX- or MIPS-based
            systems today and upgrade to Alpha AXP systems in the future.

          "Today's Alpha AXP announcement returns Digital to its strongest
          competitive    position in years. It is the result of a massive
          company-wide effort involving all of engineering, marketing,
          sales, service, and manufacturing -- as well as over 1,000
          application and system partners. Yet, today's announcement is
          only one in a series of planned major Alpha AXP announcements,"
          said Winston R. Hindle, Senior Vice President of Digital
          Equipment Corporation.

          The Universal Platform for Open Choice

          Alpha AXP computing goes beyond "open" to create the first
          universal platform. It provides choice of operating system
          software, open standards, popular peripherals, and vendors.
          Since no one software environment can meet all customer needs,
          Digital offers a choice of leadership operating systems.
          Together, these three  operating systems bring a huge reservoir
          of applications to Alpha AXP computing.
          DEC OSF/1 for Alpha AXP is the only 64-bit operating system
          meeting the    specifications agreed to by UNIX System
          Laboratories and the Open Software

          Foundation for a unified UNIX software platform. This means it
          is able to support applications written to all the popular UNIX
          variants -- including System V, OSF, and Berkeley derivatives
          such as the ULTRIX operating system. A software
          development version is available now, and volume shipment of an
          end-user version will begin in March, 1993.

          The OpenVMS AXP operating system provides the world's highest
          functionality software environment -- with features that deliver
          leadership data protection, integrity, availability, and
          scalability. The OpenVMS AXP operating system is available now,
          and at the same base price as DEC OSF/1 for Alpha AXP.
          The Windows NT operating system will provide the familiar
          Microsoft Windows      environment on the fastest hardware
          platform in the industry.

          The universal platform will provide a choice of popular open
          standards, including: POSIX, SQL, TCP/IP, OSI, ANSI languages,
          and others. The universal platform also will provide a choice of
          popular hardware interconnects -- EISA, SCSI-2,
          TURBOchannel, VME, Futurebus+, Ethernet, and FDDI -- so all
          popular peripherals and networks can be used.
          Unbounded Performance; Cost-Effective for Decades

          AXP system performance begins where 32-bit reduced instruction
          set computing (RISC) systems leave off. Unlike IBM,
          Hewlett-Packard, and Sun RISC systems, Alpha AXP computing
          offers sixty-four-bit addressing -- four billion times the data
          addressing capacity of current 32-bit systems. For example,
          32-bit addressing can
          directly address all the words in 111 file cabinets. Sixty-four
          bit addressing provides the power to address all the words in a
          row of file cabinets stretching around the world 5,000 times.

         "Our goal is to create the 64-bit universal standard. Sixty-four
          bits will enable the full potential, at affordable prices, of
          entire application arenas that are only being experimented with
          today, such as multimedia, imaging, and virtual reality," said
          William R. Demmer, Vice President, Alpha and VAX Systems.

          "Today's first Alpha AXP systems set new industry performance
          records, and Alpha AXP technology will sustain that performance
          for decades. The Alpha AXP architecture is operating-system
          independent and we are aggressively partnering at all levels of
          integration. Twenty-first century computing starts today," he
          added.

          Today's new products include a family of workstations and
          servers based on the Alpha AXP architecture.  These systems
          offer the best price/performance in the industry among systems
          in their respective classes from IBM, H-P, or Sun Microsystems.
          The new Alpha AXP models offer leadership performance across a
          wide range of industry-standard benchmarks, including SPECfp92,
          SPECint92, and SPEC89.

          The DEC 3000 AXP workstations were announced today.  The Model
          400 offers 107.5 SPECmark89 units of performance for less than
          $15,000.  The model 500 offers large expansion capacity and is
          priced at less than $39,000.  Both are available now.  Digital
          also announced today that it will introduce additional
          workstations, and EISA-based AXP systems running Windows NT --
          priced under $10,000 -- in the first half of 1993.

          Digital also announced five Alpha AXP servers. Server versions
          of the two DEC 3000 AXP workstations offer very high performance
          for less than $19,000 and $42,000 respectively. DEC 4000 AXP
          servers offer multiprocessing, powerful        Futurebus+ I/O,
          twice the expansion of competitive models, and up to 247.0 SPECthruput
          -- with prices starting at $77,000. The DEC 7000 AXP data center
          server is the most expandable data center system in the industry
          in processing power, I/O, disk and memory capacity; it delivers
          604.4 SPECthruput89. Entry prices start at $168,000. The DEC
          10000 AXP mainframe-class server uses the fastest
          microprocessors in the industry -- 200MHz, delivers over 654.6
          SPECthruput89 and is priced starting at $316,000. The DEC 3000
          AXP, DEC 4000 AXP, and DEC 7000 AXP servers are available now;
          the DEC 10000 AXP server will be available in the first quarter
          of 1993.

          Solutions for Competitive Business Advantage

          Today, more than 2,000 applications from 1,000 vendors already
          are committed to run on AXP systems running the OpenVMS AXP or
          DEC OSF/1 for Alpha AXP        operating systems. To support
          application migration, Digital has shipped more than 800 AXP
          systems to software developers and opened more than 30
          Application Migration Centers worldwide.

          Digital's staged software delivery is on schedule, with software
          products for   applications developers available on both DEC
          OSF/1 for Alpha AXP and OpenVMS AXP systems. The 19 layered
          software products announced today include DEC FORTRAN and DEC C
          compilers, DECnet networking and DEC Rdb database. -

          The next stage, a complete CASE and runtime environment, is
          available to all developers through Digital's Application
          Migration Center programs.

          Services is an integral part of Digital's Alpha AXP solutions
          capability. Digital leads the industry in multivendor open
          services, servicing more than 14,000   products from 1,300
          vendors.

          Digital offers a dedicated set of multivendor services focused
          on smoothly    integrating Alpha AXP technology with existing
          multivendor environments. Digital is committed to support its
          partners with the same level of service as for its own products.

          The expanded services portfolio includes new migration,
          training, and consulting services that help UNIX, OpenVMS, and,
          soon, Windows NT customers easily move to Alpha AXP-class
          computing. New design-in and support services help Digital's
          Alpha AXP partners build, deliver and support Alpha AXP-based
          products.

          Digital's goal is to give customers the widest choice of
          leadership solutions across the broadest range of market
          segments. Digital is actively recruiting partners and will sell
          its products at all levels of integration -- chips, boards,
          system, boxes, software, solutions, and design -- and will
          license intellectual property in alliances that will broaden the
          Alpha AXP market.

          There are now more than 35 Alpha AXP partners, including
          Olivetti, Cray Research, Kubota Pacific, Aeon Systems, and
          Raytheon.

          Alpha-ready Upgrade Program Protects Customer Investments
          All OpenVMS VAX and ULTRIX DECsystem products are "Alpha-ready."
          They support the same software, data, applications, networks,
          clusters and peripherals as Alpha AXP systems. This means that
          over 85 percent of customers' typical  computing investments in
          hardware, software, and training are protected. With Alpha-ready
          upgrades, Digital protects the other 15 percent of customers'
          investments -- the central processor itself.

          With today's Alpha AXP announcement, Digital has improved its
          Alpha-ready Upgrade Program dramatically. For example, it now
          costs only $99/SPECmark for the    difference in performance
          when moving from any new VAXstation or DECstation workstation to
          a DEC 3000 Model 400 AXP workstation. It costs $30,000 per
          processor for an in-cabinet upgrade from the VAX 7000 system to
          the DEC 7000 AXP system, a small percent of the total system
          price.

          New business practices also enable customers to move software
          licenses easily and efficiently to Alpha AXP systems.
          To continue to provide leadership price/performance for
          commercial applications, Digital reduced several Alpha-ready VAX
          entry system prices. Digital has               re-established
          its lead over IBM, H-P, and Sun, based on the widely recognized
          TPC Benchmark A: $7,639/tpsA-Local and 51.95 tpsA-Local for the
          VAX 4000 Model 100 system.

          Digital Equipment Corporation, headquartered in Maynard,
          Massachusetts, is the leading worldwide supplier of networked
          computer systems, software, and services. Digital pioneered and
          leads the industry in interactive, distributed, and
          multivendor computing. Digital and its business partners deliver
          the power to use the best integrated solutions - from desktop to
          data center - in open information      environments.

                                            ####
          Note to Editors:       Alpha AXP, AXP, the AXP mark, DEC,
          DECstation,                            DECsystem, DECnet,
          Digital, the Digital logo, OpenVMS,
                         TURBOchannel, ULTRIX, VAX, and VAXstation are
                         trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation.

                         MIPS is a trademark of MIPS Computer Systems.
                         UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System
          Laboratories.

                         OSF and OSF/1 are registered trademarks of the
          Open                                   Software Foundation, Inc.
                         Microsoft is a registered trademark and Windows
          NT is a
                         trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

                         System V is a trademark of AT&T.
                         Futurebus+ is a trademark of Force Computers
          GMBH.


          CORP/93/821
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU