Digital Introduces the Industry's Most Comprehensive Desktop Offerings

Business Wire

January 10, 1989

Littleton, MA -- Digital Equipment Corp. Tuesday announced the broadest set of desktop solutions, all with the same "look and feel," ever offered by a single vendor.

At the same time, the company introduced the industry's only unifying software environment, based on industry standards. These new capabilities provide an extraordinary advantage to users in accessing and sharing the information they need to do their jobs, and to application developers in creating innovative software.

"Over the past several years, popular thinking equated the personal computer with improving individual productivity," said Kenneth H. Olsen, president, Digital Equipment Corp. "In large organizations, however, customers have made it very clear they need a range of desktop tools that can access far more information than what is available on standalone PCs or small PC networks.

"The new desktop environment Digital is introducing today enables users to access and share the networked information and resources they need, from the desktop device that best suits the way they want to work," Olsen said.

The Industry's Most Comprehensive Systems For The Desktop

Today's announcement includes

-- the broadest family of desktop systems in the industry:

-- price/performance leading VAX workstaions for both entry- level and mid-range graphics users;

-- the industry's fastest UNIX-based desktop workstation --a price/performance leading RISC-based system, and a new ULTRIX server;

-- a new family of industry-standard MS-DOS PCs from Digital; and,

-- the industry's only unified software environment, built on Network Application Support:

-- DECwindows software that provides a consistent user and programming interface to be used across VMS, ULTRIX and MS-DOS operating systems;

-- innovative software applications based on Digital's CDA (compound document architecture) that feature networked electronic publishing including "live links" to information sources. With them, users can create documents in major languages, containing images, text, graphics, and data, and exchange them across networks and operating systems.

Continuity In Architecture Enables Easy Integration Of New Products

"Digital's product strategy and architecture was designed from the beginning to meet our customers needs for integrating the enterprise, and at the same time to accomodate the inevitable advances in computing technology," said William Strecker, Digital's vice president, product strategy and architecture.

"Digital's system architecture defines layered components as well as the interfaces between those components. With a consistent approach to networking, distributed computing, and applications integration, Digital can introduce new technology at any level of the architecture and all of the components will continue to work together," he added. "Whether using the VMS, ULTRIX or MS-DOS operating system, Digital fulfills the real customer need -- the highest possible interoperability from the desktop to the data center, forming one enterprise-wide computing environment."

Digital Matches Desktop Devices To Application Needs

"The desktop does not equal PC," said Domenic J. LaCava, Digital vice president, low end systems. "With today's announcements, Digital further enhanced its portfolio of desktop options -- competitvely priced, high-performance terminals, PCs and workstations from Digital, as well as the best integration of systems from other vendors available in the marketplace."

Leadership VAX Workstations

Digital announced the new VAXstation 3100, offering three times the price/performance of the entry-level VAXstation 2000. It features compact packaging, and new high-performance desktop storage devices, including the RRD40, a CD (compact disk) device for software applications.

"The versatile VAXstation 3100 provides excellent performance for a wide range of applications, including software development, technical and business desktop publishing, advanced decision support, and computer-aided engineering and design," LaCava said.

Digital also demonstrated the VAXstation 3520 and 3540, symme tric multiprocessing systems for compute-intensive, high-performance graphics applications such as computer aided design, scientific visualization, and health care imaging. These new mid-range workstations are the industry's first to bring high-resolution 2D and 3D graphics, displayed on a new, higher resolution monitor, to the X Window environment.

The First In Digital's Family of RISC-based ULTRIX Workstations

For users who need specialized high-performance on the desktop, Digital introduced a new, compact, RISC-based ULTRIX workstation. For applications such as complex simulation and modeling, and sophisticated financial modeling and decision support, the new DECstation 3100 offers performance ratings of up to 14 MIPS, based on the Dhrystone benchmark.

"With DECwindows, the DECstation 3100 enables workgroups such as engineering teams to access a broad range of VMS, ULTRIX, or MS-DOS applications," LaCava said. "And, at about $1K per MIPS, it represents a breakthrough in both price/performance and information access for technical workstations."

New Digital Personal Computers

For workers who require MS-DOS applications, Digital introduced a new family of personal computers: the DECstation 210, 316, and 320 systems. "These new personal computers are ideal for all types of MS-DOS applications that can be shared across an enterprise -- in the office for electronic publishing and work with spreadsheets and graphics, or in the lab for instrument control," LaCava said.

Digital's new desktop systems also feature highly competitive service and support pricing, with warranty options ranging from one- year return-to-Digital, to comprehensive on-site support. Based on Digital's experience in servicing multi-vendor networks, the company will extend its enterprise-wide-services to include new comprehensive and cost-effective service solutions for all desktop products.