January 26, 1998 Pricey Unix Po rtables RDI workstation lets users move work between home, office By Mary Hayes DI Computer Corp. will unveil this week a portable workstation based on Hewlett-Packard's Unix. Its goal: to address a small but apparently solid demand for Unix notebook systems. RDI, in Carlsbad, Calif., has built a business out of providing portable computers running Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system. It developed the PrecisionBook after discussions with attendees at HP user conferences convinced company officials that there's plenty of demand. Analysts say that demand is driven by telecommuting. "People want to be able to move their work between the office and the home," says Greg Weiss, an analyst with D.H. Brown Inc. Sun and HP don't currently offer portable U nix systems primarily because it's not worth their time to pursue such a small market. But Sun and HP have a symbiotic relationship with RDI, which expands the reach of their respective technologies, analysts say. "RDI is performing a valuable service for workstation vendors who can't shift their focus enough to work on notebook products," says Weiss. Portability comes at a price, however. The PrecisionBook includes either a 160-MHz or 132-MHz PA-7300LC processor, and offers performance comparable to a B-Class HP Visualize system. But at $11,995, it's nearly $3,000 more than a B-Class system. However, analysts say flexibility is more important than price for some users. "In the era of telecommuting, the idea of a transportable system is quite attractive. This has created a small demand for portable Unix workstations," says Peter ffoulkes, an analyst with Dataquest. Because HP is the No. 2 workstation vendor after Sun in terms of market share, it makes sense for RDI to follow its Solaris offerings wit h an HP-UX system, adds ffoulkes. The 7.5-pound PrecisionBook includes a 14.1-inch display, up to 12 Gbytes of storage, 512 Mbytes of memory, and HP's Visualize-EG graphics. The system runs HP-UX 10.2, and is powered by lithium-ion batteries. Back to News in Review Send Us Your Feedback Top of the Page

---