Stratus Computer will switch to Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC

Electronic News, June 29, 1992 by Craig Stedman

MARLBORO, MASS.--Stratus Computer plans to base next generation fault-tolerant processors on Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC architecture rather than the Intel i860 now used, saying it is most comfortable with HP's R&D schedule.

Stratus evaluated the range of RISC microprocessors before settling on PA-RISC. IBM's Power architecture and the i860 apparently received the most consideration among the other choices, but it was decided that HP's roadmap would yield better price/performance in coming years.

DEC's new Alpha technology was seen as a potential choice because of its high performance ratings, but Stratus executives indicated it was hurt by its newness as well as its use of a different byte-ordering format than Stratus has on its current machines.

The shift away from the i860, which had already lost two other system customers during May, wasn't unexpected. Stratus had been signaling that such a move was being considered (Data Topics, June 8).

Stratus still plans to introduce a range of new i860-based models in July to augment the pair of low-end and mid-range RISC uniprocessors it brought out last year. Those machines are being counted on for at least two years, with director of systems marketing Jim Holley noting that the first PA-RISC units aren't expected to be ready until 1994 or 1995.

Mr. Holley claimed the i860-based line would be "a very competitive offering for several years," but noted that Stratus was less certain that future versions of that device would match up well against the competition in light of Intel's increased focus on its x86 architecture.

"We didn't feel clear that Intel's schedule for producing their line matched the time-frame we felt we needed," he said. "They've certainly got future generations of the 860 coming, but the technology is moving along so quickly that having the right processor in your product in the right time-frame is really paramount."

The i860 also hasn't garnered many design wins as a main processor. Two it managed to snare disappeared recently when Oki Electric shut down its U.S. workstation unit and Alliant Computer Systems filed Chapter 11.

Besides Stratus, the only major U.S. customers remaining are Intel's own and DEC's massively parallel processor (MPP) efforts and IBM's high-end visualization server.

Mr. Holley said Stratus "certainly would have liked to see more vendors sign up for" the i860, but insisted that was not a major factor in the company's decision to move to PA-RISC. The performance issue was the most important one, he added.

Stratus plans to use a future version of HP's 100MHz 7100 microprocessor in the PA-RISC machines, which will be source code compatible with its existing hardware. Because of that, little impact is anticipated on sales of the new i860-based systems coming out next month, Mr. Holley said.

Stratus is the second fault-tolerant vendor to sign up to use the PA-RISC technology. Sequoia Systems, also based here, is already developing a line of systems in conjunction with HP, which plans to resell those machines under an OEM and equity investment deal signed in late 1989.

Willem Roelandts, vice president and general manager of HP's Networked Systems group, said pointedly as part of a joint statement with Stratus that the new deal with that company "does not change our alliance with Sequoia." Mr. Holley affirmed that trying to get HP to resell the future Stratus machines "is not an avenue of pursuit," although he said it would be "an open possibility" if HP expressed interest.

A.J. Berkeley, Sequioa vice president of marketing, said his company doesn't feel threatened by the prospect of the larger Stratus using the same processor since the companies' overall architectures are very different. Both he and Mr. Holley noted that the two vendors currently each use 68000-family devices.

PA-RISC will actually be the third RISC architecture that Stratus has worked with. The company's first choice was Motorola's 88000, but that program was dropped in favor of the i860 in early 1989 before any prototype machines based on the 88K were produced.