HP provides more details of technology roadmap

Electronic News, June 16, 1997

HP also recently announced an agreement with Informix under which the two companies will combine Informix's Universal Server technology with HP's PSF based on IA-64 processors. Phil White, Informix chairman and CEO, commented on the motivation behind the partnership that, "Businesses increasingly need to manage content-rich data as easily as numbers and text."

The HP-Informix agreement extends a long-standing relationship that will now expand into developing products to enable extended enterprises to manage various types of information including images, maps, sound, video and other data types--particularly multimedia content--on the World Wide Web.

As reported earlier, HP in April outlined its PSF strategy (EN, April 28) including a peek at its plans to use the planned IA-64 (Intel Architecture, 64-bit) architecture it is co-developing with Intel. At that time, HP said specific product details would be available over the next 12-15 months beginning in May.

PSF is a follow-up to last December's Extended Enterprise initiative--defining a platform to take advantage of the Internet in a secure manner. New systems will run both Unix and Windows NT operating systems, based on PA-RISC and IA-64 devices. With up to 256-way SMP (symmetric multi-processing), designers will be able to simulate an automobile or airplane in its entirety, not just portions of the design, as most engineers are limited to today, on next-generation workstations.

Bidding To Create Momentum

In an interview with Electronic News, Scott Emo, technology marketing manager at HP's Systems Technology Division, commented: "A number of different industry software and hardware vendors are focused on delivering this new environment on the IA-64 platform. Oracle is one and there are a number of other vendors including Microsoft, Netscape and now Informix. PSF is the base technology for our next-generation solutions. We need to have software to complete the solution. This shows we are getting industry momentum."

Technologies under the PSF umbrella include the microprocessor, systems design, operating systems, compilers and middleware that will form the foundation for HP's future systems. PSF will be designed, HP said last week, to provide a single architecture, choice of operating systems, as well as increased performance and scalability, and backward-compatibility with today's applications.

"We're moving rapidly into an era in which people will increasingly depend on information from more sources and in far richer, more complex forms," said Richard E. Belluzzo, HP executive VP and head of the Computer Organization. "To succeed in this new era, people will need computers that are more powerful and that are optimized to handle more applications and data, running in a range of operating environments. HP expects to ship future computer systems with Intel's first Merced processor production."

Widespread Availability

"We're excited and pleased about HP's commitment to IA-64," said John Miner, Intel VP, Enterprise Server Group. "Intel plans widespread and timely availability of IA-64 microprocessors to our customers. HP's incorporation of this technology into its future systems will help ensure broad industry support."

HP confirmed last week that it has defined a set of design criteria for HP systems to ensure that customers purchasing HP PA-RISC(1) or HP IA-32 systems today will have the investment protection they need as they take advantage of IA-64 based systems. These OEMs can be assured that their applications will run without recompilation because of the compatibility that has been designed into the entire HP systems architecture, the company said.