Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: siedelbe@stout.ucar.edu (Mike Siedelberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Information sought on Solbourne Computers
Message-ID: <1371@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: 11 Feb 89 00:16:01 GMT
References: <8901271258.AA15148@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Field Observing Facility, NCAR, Boulder, CO
Lines: 49
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: 7 Feb 89 00:32:33 GMT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 150, message 13 of 13
X-Issue-Reference: v7n137

chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) writes:
>...
>Consider this, though: Sun is not stupid.  They would not license their
>product to another company who is undercutting them by 25% unless they
>were ready to roll out significant price/performance improvements in the
>near future.  Wait for the February product announcements that were hinted
>at at the Miami SUG.  I predict you'll find a better, cheaper machine to
>meet your needs.

Since my direct reply to the original message bounced I will try this
route.  

I recently had a tour of the Solbourne facility in Longmont which is ten
minutes away from Boulder.  The Solbourne machine is not a direct clone of
the standard Suns.  Solbourne uses their own proprietary internal bus for
their major boards ie. CPU, memory, ethernet, SCSI, frame buffer, and a
couple of serial ports.  There are also other optional things like color,
which will be available.  Included too is a seven slot VME standard
chassis, which is their way to outer world upon which they have already
put on an SMD controller (not part of their current line yet, however), a
second ethernet controller (same as SMD, but supposedly much faster I/O
wise that the standard ethernet), and who knows what other gadgets.
Solburne has a seven year agreement with Sun for future support and
transfer of updated SPARC technology.  Another company that has a Sun
SPARC license is Cypress, who is developing a 20MIPS SPARC chip set.  Both
Solbourne and Sun (I believe) will be using these chips to offer a 20MIPS
SPARC machine, which is part of the new product announcements referred to
above.  According to everthing I can find out, Sun is granting licenses to
other Companies, so that they can do exactly that;  sell at a cheaper
price.  Sun gets royalties and at the very least they get more of their
type of machines out in the world.  The Solbourne machine is enough
different though, that it may not be the machine for you.  For instance,
Solbourne does not, nor is there any current plan to, support Sun format
of boards.  So if you intend to use the ALM, MCP, or TAAC (all of which I
currently use) plus any others that might come from sun, you are SOL.
Also right now they do not have any SMD support.  And so on.  What they do
offer is the ability to operate a 2nd CPU on their K-bus as a slave only
to the master CPU.  

If anyone is interested in firsthand info, Solbourne has hired at least 2
salespersons to answer questions (and sell you things :-) ).

The one I know is:
	Don Geiser
	(303)741-0020

ps.  the CURRENT rumor about the release of impending Sun products is that
nothing will be announced until around Mar-Apr and then no products out
until 60 days after that.