Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!winchester!mash From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k Subject: Re: Aviion and others? Message-ID: <41929@mips.mips.COM> Date: 4 Oct 90 22:03:03 GMT References: <1990Sep27.133938.7662@unx.sas.com> <41775@mips.mips.COM> <4701@turquoise.UUCP> <1533@ftc.framentec.fr> <1014@dg.dg.com> Sender: news@mips.COM Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 69 In article <1014@dg.dg.com> ahughes@dg-rtp.dg.com (Arch Hughes) writes: .... >I think that only time will indicate whose right. Certainly SPARK is >doing well, the i860, MIPS (even with DEC), and the 88k seem to be >also-rans in a confusing market. It's sort of like the old story about re: also-ran: since MIPS was mentioned, I have to comment (and disagree) Following is a (partial, but mostly good) list of who's got products in workstation market, by RISC architecture used as main chip: SPARC (not SPARK) Sun (97-98% of SPARC-based systems market in 1989) Solbourne High end, most of business is servers (I think?) Tatung/Mars/Solarix/Trigem/Twinhead/Datatech clones, unclear what's going on in terms of distribution, shipments, quite yet Toshiba (in Japan, not sold elsewhere, so far) misc others MIPS Evans & Sutherland (3D) DEC (2D & 3D) Mips itself (2D) NEC SGI (3D) Sony Stardent (3D) Sumitomo Electric misc others 88K Data General Everex/Opus Omron Tektronix i860 too early to tell, I think OKI's announced one. The i860s actually shipping in high-end w/s are graphics coprocessors ---- So, SUN ships a lot, especially at lower end of workstation market, and they're easy to count, because they're mostly from Sun. A bunch of MIPS-based workstations are out there, although not as many as Sun, because the strength is in the higher-performance and more expensive ones - the $VALUE is closer than the numbers, I think. Also, they're harder to count, and especially if you're in the U.S., people tend to count Sun's worldwide sales, while ignoring foreign vendors; they also tend to count ALL of Sun's sales, while not counting the multi-user servers of other people's, which in fact compete with the bigger Suns.... Also, when you read the pie-charts, sometimes they show: Sun, HP, DEC, (other), thus omitting SGI, for example, and of course, not getting to Japan... I haven't been able to figure out the revenues/units of 88K-based workstations actually sold, so I don't know where that is.... (opinion: consider the source carefully): SPARC is there because of Sun's low-end strength; MIPS is there because of high-end strength and use by multiple important vendors. 88K's existence in workstation market is basically tied to DG at low end, and Tektronix at high end. I really can't tell how they're doing, because we (MIPS) don't play directly in 3D workstations, and we very seldom bump into DG, possibly because of different channels, or something. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: UUCP: mash@mips.com OR {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash DDD: 408-524-7015, 524-8253 or (main number) 408-720-1700 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086