IBM's flip-flop - offering 'Intel Inside' workstations

Electronic News, March 24, 1997 by Sarah Cohen

Somers, N.Y.--IBM seemed to have dropped Windows NT-based workstations from its portfolio last winter when the company's RS/6000 division decided to no longer support upgrades to the Windows NT operating system (EN, Dec 23, 1996). But last week, IBM proved this decision was not a firm commitment: IBM's Professional Workstations division announced shipment of the IntelliStation Z Pro, the first in a new series of professional workstations with Pentium Pro processors and Windows NT compatibility. This move represents that first time IBM has used an Intel processor inside an IBM brand of workstation.

Jay Barrett, IBM's manager of the IntelliStation product line, told Electronic News, "What's happening in the workstation space is that people want applications that run on Windows NT, and Intel runs NT architecture. For the customer, (NT) can reduce infrastructure costs when a desktop and workstation runs the same operating system."

Not only did IBM opt to use an Intel microprocessor inside the new workstation, IBM chose the Matrox Millennium 2-D graphics card and Intergraph's Intense3D Pro 1000/T 3-D graphics card over IBM proprietary cards. Mr. Barrett explained, "IBM develops a full line of graphics cards used in workstations that only run AIX. In order to run NT, there would have to be a physical restructuring of the card, which we would expect to take nine months to a year to complete."

The IntelliStation will, said Mr. Barrett, include an IBM 256-megabyte dual in-line memory modules (DIMM), as well as an IBM RAM DAC and rasterization engine.

Some reports suggest that IBM's five-month-old Professional Workstations division will be taking business from the low end of the RS/6000 RISC processor-based workstation division. But at a press conference last week, Bob Dutkowsky, VP of IBM RS/6000 division, stated that the company benefits from the addition of "Wintel" and standards-based workstations to IBM's proprietary systems. "By bringing another product (to the workstation market), it shows how committed we are to it, and it broadens our product line dramatically. We'll have the broadest product line of any workstation vendor on the planet."

Mr. Barrett added, "I don't think the Professional Workstations division will take business away from RS/6000. There are three generic groups of workstation users: Those who are moving up in the PC market and want to continue to use Windows applications; those who have very complex needs and will continue to use a Unix system; and those will be using a mixed environment." IBM will use sales representatives from both the Professional Workstations and RS/6000 divisions to sell the IntelliStation.

The IBM IntelliStation is targeted to commercial users running mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD), electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), digital media content creation, software development and financial services applications. It is touted as delivering 1 gigabyte of memory and to feature 9.1GB wide ultra SCSI hard disk drives in a 3.5-inch form factor, Intel's EtherExpress Pro/100 with Wake on LAN technology and advance management capabilities. Available in volume today, prices range between $3,700 and $10,000 without a monitor.