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FOR Your Information
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This is a short article from the September 11, 1989 Electronic
Engineering Times. 

-johnj

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	ICL shifts to SPARC  by: Ray Weiss

Irvine, Calif.---British computer conglomerate ICL is abandoning its
RISC design base, shifting instead to the SPARC architecture.

ICL plans to use a SPARC/Unix combination to push its Office-Power
software package into position as a standard on boxes from different
vendors, starting with Sun Microsystems, Convergent and Sanyo/Icon.

The ICL Business Systems division is now working on SPARC-based
workstations and servers for the company's next-generation business
platforms.

The move reflects the rising trend on the part of computer vendors
toward non-proprietary group or standard architectures like SPARC.

OfficePower is in third place in the Unix office-software race, behind
offerings from Uniplex Integration Systems Inc. (Houston) and
Quadratron Systems, Inc.  (Westlake Village, Calif.).  It had over
100,000 users, although it ran only on platforms from ICL and Computer
Consoles Inc., now ICL North America.  CCI was acquired in January for
$168 million. 

"We believe that OfficePower, with the backing of ICL, will become the
standard Unix office software package," said ICL North America
president Gary Hega.  His division will take the point in ICL's drive
for the Unix market.

OfficePower has now been ported to Sun, Convergent and Sanyo
platforms, with additional ports in the works.  It is a windowed
environment that delivers standard business functions like electronic
mail, spreadsheets, word-processing, database management and file
conversion.  The software supports distributed PC workstations.

ICL intends to sign the vendors of the major Unix platforms to a
Cooperative Marketing Program.  As part of this plan, OfficePower will
be sold through a dedicated software sales force, with partners in the
cooperative program furnishing customer leads.  According to one
observer, this may be a difficult arrangement-the partners will need
assurance the ICL won't push its own hardware as well.

ICL is part of STC PLC Ltd., a $4 billion-plus international
conglomerate, far larger than most software companies.  Thus, an
interesting contest is shaping up with a powerful computer giant
pushing a non-proprietary package vs. a number of smaller software
houses.  

Computer Consoles did about $125 million a year in Unix hardware and
software, mainly for telephone, office and legal systems.  Its
products division had a proprietary Unix minicomputer architecture and
was developing a CMOS RISC implementation that would deliver 40 Mips
to 90 Mips.