NT News Network

Intel's New Alpha Processors?
Did you hear the rumor in early October that Digital Equipment might sell its Alpha chip technology to Intel? That initial report created quite an uproar­but the news for Alpha fans soon improved.

Digital says it wasn't interested in selling the Alpha to Intel, but in shaping a licensing agreement with Intel to take over the Alpha's manufacturing. Digital started the negotiations in an effort to settle the patent infringement suit that it had brought against Intel. Digital has been seeking a manufacturing partner for the Alpha for a couple of years. The company wants to lessen the financial burden of owning and operating the Massachusetts semiconductor plant that produces the Alpha chips. Digital's lawsuit claims that Intel infringed Digital's patents on cache management, branch prediction, and instruction-processing technology within the Alpha processor.

According to sources at Digital, the company will not turn its back on Alpha technology, but instead will ensure that the Alpha continues to reign as the king of speed and that the Alpha quickly becomes the platform of choice for high-end Windows NT systems. Digital says that no matter how the lawsuit is settled, Digital will continue to deliver Alpha-based 64-bit enterprise solutions to its customers. As of mid-October, the companies said that they had not entered into any firm agreements.

—Mark Joseph Edwards

NDS for NT
Directory services are coming to Windows NT in the form of Microsoft's Active Directory (AD). But Novell has beaten Microsoft to the punch by recently releasing its new Novell Directory Service (NDS) for Windows NT. Novell's new philosophy toward NT is to not fight it, but to use it to Novell's advantage. Novell claims NDS for NT is a strategic solution for dealing with problems introduced by NT domains­problems that Microsoft is acutely aware of and intends to address with AD.

If you use both NetWare and NT, Novell's offering might help you manage those dissimilar operating systems. Novell claims that using NDS will lower systems administration costs, create higher system and applications availability, result in fewer Help desk calls, and offer tighter network security and reliability.

You must host the initial release of NDS for NT on a NetWare server, but as of NDS 1.1 (due out by second quarter 1998), you'll be able to run NDS on NT. Novell says that in the future, NT 5.0 will fully support NDS, and NDS will complement AD in managing heterogeneous networks. In addition to many other useful features, NDS can bring single-sign-on capabilities to a heterogeneous network today­a feature most administrators would love to have available on their network.

Like Microsoft, which wants AD running on as many UNIX systems as possible, Novell is recruiting UNIX partners for moving NDS into the marketplace. Novell wants to see NDS ship on as many as 75 percent of all UNIX platforms sold. Novell has also reached an agreement with IBM to use NDS on IBM's 390 series mainframes.

—Mark Vernon

Pssst, Wanna Buy an OS?
Continuing its effort to displace UNIX and preparing for the eventual release of Windows NT 5.0 next year, Microsoft is campaigning for the product space of about 3000 UNIX Value Added Resellers (VARs) that happen to currently be major Sun Microsystems resellers. The effort includes a national tour with HP and Tech Data in a quest to transform the quasi-religious UNIX vs. NT debate into a practical business discussion. Microsoft is offering the VARs an opportunity to get their hands on NT; that way, they can begin setting themselves apart from the crowd by offering NT solutions in addition to UNIX products. Microsoft is telling its field reps to target Sun VARs everywhere.

And while Microsoft mounts its assault on Sun's turf, Sun is strengthening relations with its VARs. Sun's computer hardware division recently doubled reseller development funds after VARs complained they could make more money selling Compaq servers. Sun is educating VARs on how to increase their profits by selling applications, services, and peripherals, and is conducting its own road show demonstrating Sun hardware and UNIX-NT integration.

—Mark Joseph Edwards

News Analysis:
NT 5.0: Who Wants It?
Microsoft has released Windows NT 5.0 in its first beta version, but who's chomping at the bit for this new platform? No one knows for sure yet, but I'll offer some insight.

Dataquest recently revised its NT forecast. The company once predicted that by the end of 1997, NT would run on 11 million desktops; now the company says that only 8 million desktops will run NT. Granted, the prediction isn't tied to NT 5.0, but you can see it as an indicator of NT 5.0's effect on the market. How many of those desktops will retool to NT 5.0 after recently converting to NT 4.0? Chances are that not many firms will retool quickly, unless they've already realized their investments in NT 4.0. Companies might not be able to justify the expense of moving to NT 5.0 until they've milked NT 4.0 for a while. Dataquest says that some firms are moving to NT 4.0 slowly because of the hype about NT 5.0. Although some firms have bitten the bullet and installed NT 4.0, other firms are waiting for NT 5.0. In a nutshell, don't expect to see many NT 4.0 shops immediately upgrading to NT 5.0 when Microsoft releases it in mid-1998.

Another factor governing who will use NT 5.0 is legacy system integration. Some shops believe that Windows 95 (Win95) doesn't function well with legacy systems, and software vendors are pointing those shops to NT instead of Windows 98 (Win98). Therefore, expect to see many shops skip Win98 and go straight to NT 5.0.