InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
Hot In '97: Boring No More
Issue date: Jan. 6, 1997
This will be a hot year for hardware. For the network computer, 1997 is probably do-or-die. Notebooks will gain wider screens, while souped-up PCs will give traditional workstations a run for their money. Big-iron fans won't be disappointed, either: Many servers will soon sprout fault-tolerant capabilities. Who says hardware is dull?
Network Computers
IS managers looking for corporate desktop systems have basically had two choices: PCs or dumb terminals. This year, t
hey'll have a third option: the NC.
The NC is a desktop system broadly referred to as a "thin client" that lacks both local storage and a large operating system. It's intended to offer advantages over both the PC and dumb terminal. NCs promise to be easier to manage and administer than PCs. And unlike X terminals, NCs are based on Internet protocols, contain the Java Virtual Machine, and sell for about $800.
Last year, the first few NCs trickled out from Boundless Technologies, HDS Network Systems, and Idea Inc. This year, that trickle will become a flood as Corel, IBM, Network Computing Devices, Oracle, Sun, Wyse, and others begin shipping NCs too.
The computer industry loves to add features, and NC makers are no exception. Most plan to add more support for the fledgling Java operating environment this year, making NCs suitable desktop systems for both Java-heavy, Internet-based corporate intranets and business-to-busi-ness extranets. Some NC manufacturers also may add a univers al serial bus to their machines. This will let NCs connect to a variety of peripheral devices through a single port.
Progress will also come on the processor front. Powerful NC processors, such as Digital Equipment's Strong-Arm, will continue evolving this year. These chips don't suffer from the overheating problems associated with PC-designed processors. Also, speedier processors will let NCs download data faster from networks.
NC makers are also developing portable smart cards--most likely for delivery in 1998--that will store a user's information and desktop setup. This way, a user can have the same experience and network access while using any NC that accepts his or her smart card.
How pervasive will NCs become? NC proponent extraordinaire and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison predicts they'll eventually be sold in "much greater volume" than PCs. But Zona Research Inc. disagrees, for now and the near future. Zona predicts that this year total worldwide NC shipments to commercial user s will reach 1.7 million units; by comparison, nearly 70 million desktop, portable, and server PCs will ship this year, predicts International Data Corp. For 2000, Zona forecasts, commercial NC shipments will reach 6.8 million units; that same year, IDC predicts, total PC shipments will exceed 117 million units. "NCs will find their niche in fixed applications," says Greg Blatnik, an analyst with Zona in Redwood City, Calif.
Many NC makers are pursuing vertical markets. Boundless Technologies, for one, is working with developers of telecommunications and financial applications to jointly pursue those markets. AT&T plans to install 2,500 Boundless NC XLC systems for its long-distance call center. "The arena is crowded and noisy, so you can't provide a generic NC solution," says Bob Porter, Boundless' chief technology officer.
Similarly, the pharmaceuticals arm of the American Association of Retired Persons will implement 1,000 HDS@workstations to handle customer service and drug o rder fulfillment. Retail florist giant FTD plans to use Sun JavaStations for a new ordering system.
-- Mary Hayes
Notebooks
In this year's notebook computer market, life will imitate art--or at least pulp fiction. Like the gypsies in a Steven King novel who mutter "thinner"
to curse enemies, notebook users and suppliers will murmur "wider, wider, wider."
But whether this will be a curse or a blessing remains to be seen. Wider screens for notebooks are here, in sizes measuring 13 to 14 inches. Notebook makers will spend much of the year trying to figure out who really needs these wider screens--and how much they'll pay for them.
Larger screens turn a notebook into a heavier machine with a battery life as short as just two hours. Are they still portable? "'Mobile' means a notebook PC that has four hours of battery life and can fit on an airplane tray table," says Andrew Seybold, editor of the Seybold Report in Brookdale, Calif.
Seybold says notebooks with 13- to 14-inch screens will be seen on higher-end portable PCs that can replace more traditional desktop PCs. Desktop replacement typically has meant a heavier form factor, a faster processor, and a battery life of two to three hours, like that of IBM's ThinkPad 760.
Yet for travelers who give multime-dia, graphics-rich pre- sentations, a 14-inch screen could be very useful. "Screens will get bigger because people want them bigger," says Eric Shuster, marketing manager at Compaq in Houston.
Industry analysts expect all of the leading notebook vendors--including Compaq, IBM, NEC, and Toshiba--to introduce 13-inch screens early this year, with prices in the $6,000 to $7,000 range. Larger 14-inch screens for use on desktop replacement machines should appear before the end of the year.
But some industry analysts question whether users really want or need these larger screens. "Fourteen-inch screens will exist i n 1997; the question is whether they will sell," says Nathan Nuttal, a mobile-computing analyst at Sherwood Research in Framingham, Mass. "There won't be a lot of people who will want to carry a system of that size."
Similarly, Seybold believes the high price will scare away many customers. "You're talking about a 14-inch notebook for $7,000, against a 12.1-inch notebook for $4,000," he says. "I'm having problems seeing corporate customers spending nearly double."
But Compaq's Shuster points out how little demand there was for 12.1-inch screens when they were new. "We haven't had a user come to us asking for 14 inches," he says. "But the product usually comes first."
PC Workstations
High-performance workstations are regarded as expensive tools reserved for those who really need them--engineers, designers, and others. But that's about to change. Workstation prices, which have be
en falling steadily for years, will drop even faster in 1997. New systems based on Intel's Pentium Pro microprocessor and Microsoft's Windows NT operating system will let vendors deliver workstation power and graphics capabilities for less than $10,000.
These cheap, powerful PC workstations already are available from Acer America, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intergraph, and Netpower. More suppliers will join in soon. PC powerhouse Compaq, for one, has set up a separate division to develop workstations and hopes to ship its first systems before April.
Prices for these Intel-based workstations begin at less than $10,000. That's about half the price of Unix graphics workstations. The machines can save users money in other ways, too.
In addition to running traditional Unix workstation applications, such as modeling and engineering programs on the Windows NT platform, these systems can also run standard Windows business applications. That gives users a common platform for both graphics and office applications--and that, in turn, can lower support costs.
Graphics cards are yet another high-cost item for Unix workstations. But prices have been dropping steadily, thanks to low-cost graphics accelerator chips. Prices for some high-end Unix graphics cards can top $2,000, but when those cards are ported to the Windows NT environment, economies of scale may cut prices in half.
These NT workstations have reached parity with many Unix workstations, says Laura Segervall, an analyst with International Data Corp. "Intel's latest chips have floating-point performance that is competitive with comparable RISC chips," she explains. The next generation of Intel chips, coming from the company's Merced project, will be a 64-bit implementation that may exceed RISC chip performance.
Intel's Pentium Pro chip incorporates many high-performance features offered on standard RISC architectures commonly used in workstation microprocessors. These include super-pipelined architecture, an integ rated Level 2 cache, and dynamic execution techniques. These Pentium Pro features greatly increase performance, particularly for graphics and basic number crunching, Segervall says.
Also, the Pentium Pro's floating-point performance--important for graphics--compares favorably with similar RISC systems. On the software side, Microsoft has adopted the Open GL graphics language, a library of graphics functions for 3-D drawing and rendering. Taken together, they make for an impressive package.
-- Bob Francis
Fault Tolerance
One hot trend will involve technology that has distinguished some servers for years: fault tolerance, or high availability. But this year, fault tolerance won't be enough to distinguish any server--everyone's going to offer it.
"Fault tolerance has been cheapened," says Evan Bauer, an analyst with Giga Information Group, an IT advisory firm in Cambridge, Mass.
In a true fault-tolerant system, everything, including applications, is mirrored and spread out so fire or flood can't knock out the system. "The best you can get with computers in the same room is 99.9% availability," says Bauer. "True fault tolerance is still a proprietary solution."
Tandem and Digital Equipment lead with 99.98% availability, says Bauer, but other vendors are moving toward that solution. On the way are IBM's Parallel Sysplex division and RS/6000 SP division, along with distributed-lock-manager Unix solutions from Digital, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems.
HP believes it's already there for '97. Dan Beringer, HP's marketing manager for Unix core software, says Unix clusters work better than proprietary systems by combining fault tolerance with advanced features to maximize application capabilities. "Five or six years ago, you could put fault tolerance on the map, but I'm not sure if there's a difference anymore," says Beringer.
But one Tandem user won't part with tho se proprietary systems anytime soon. "Fault tolerance is the ability to catch a fault in progress and complete the transactions," says Walter Johnston, VP of service development at telephone company Nynex in White Plains, N.Y. "High-availability Intel or Unix systems aren't immune to fault. If I endure a fault, I lose transactions."
Nervous executives will likely continue driving IS managers to vendors that provide what research firm International Data Corp. terms Level 4 availability. "When PC vendors talk about fault tolerance, it's an oxymoron," says Gene Lee, research manager for IDC West in Mountain View, Calif. "Such poor quality as a cable failure or a backplane down has to be balanced against any claim of fault tolerance."
Lee sees NCR positioned as a high-availability leader this year. NCR, which provides both NT and Unix systems, plans to build on that lead. "Over the next couple of years, customers will demand high availability from proprietary vendors, but at no increase in cost-per-component than in the open system world," says Mike Denny, VP of computer systems marketing for NCR in Dayton, Ohio.
NCR will work hard this year on NT availability. "We've gone to three nodes with NT, so that one box can be the failover for two, cutting costs by 25%," Denny says. "We'll provide full integration between NT and our Top End TP [transaction processing] monitor."
One NCR customer that's already running high-availability NT is Delta Air Lines in Atlanta. "Our biggest issue is price/performance, but the objective is still to prevent a failover," says John Cahill, assistant VP of information services for Delta's TransQuest technology subsidiary. "That's what NCR brings to us."
http://www.informationweek.com
Featured Microsite
