---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Workstation Producers Advance High-Speed Communications Standard SunFLASH Vol 51 #4 March 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP, IBM, Sun Call Channel Key to Future Applications San Francisco, Feb. 23, 1993--Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation today announced the Fibre Channel Systems Initiative, a joint venture to advance Fibre Channel as an affordable, high-speed interconnection standard for workstations and peripherals used in thousands of commercial and technical applications. The three companies said their initial focus will be applications running on multiple workstations from more than one maker. However, because the results of their efforts will be open and available to the public, the eventual impact will enhance the way all computers are used in business, medicine, science, education and government. For example, businesses will be able to share the processing of complex applications, such as stock-market analyses, among several clustered computers, and doctors will be able to send large data files containing diagnostic images instantly to colleagues in offices throughout a medical institute. Current communication alternatives for workstations from multiple vendors are typically slow, while Fibre Channel transfers data at speeds up to one gigabit (60,000 pages of information) per second over distances of 10 kilometers. The primary goals of the Fibre Channel Systems Initiative are to: --Advance a high-speed interconnection for workstations and systems. "Open systems have created tremendous growth in the performance and price-performance of computers. This has accelerated the demand for high-speed communications," said Willem P. Roelandts, an HP vice president and general manager of its Computer Systems Organization. "An open interconnect standard like Fibre Channel promises to give users both the speed and platform independence they are looking for. --Promote open systems for distributes computing. "The wide availability of affordable Fibre Channel communications will give computer users much greater flexibility and freedom of choice in combining equipment from a variety of manufacturers," said Andreas Bechtolsheim, Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation's vice president of technology and co-founder. "This is an essential ingredient for true open systems and the success of distributed computing." --Propose selected sets of Fibre Channel options, called "profiles," that will be available to the industry as a basis for building products. "Defining these profile and making them available to the industry will ease the implementation to the Fibre Channel standard," said Phil Hester, vice president of systems and technology for IBM's Advanced Workstations and Systems. It will promote compatibility of Fibre Channel products from different companies and open possibilities for desktop applications that have remained impractical up to now." The tremendous market need for high-speed communications that conforms to industry-accepted standards is expected to drive the growth of Fibre Channel products. "Ultimately, the rate of market acceptance for Fibre Channel interfaces will depend upon four things: the cost of the interface, standardization, the availability of Fibre Channel switches and the increased use of data-intensive, end-user applications," said Nathan Walker, project manager at Ryan-Hankin-Kent Inc., a South San Francisco market research firm. "We expect that by the second half of 1990s a significant share of workstations and servers could be using Fibre Channel interfaces. Its unique capabilities and potential low cost make Fibre Channel an attractive solution for mass-storage and cluster computing applications." The Fibre Channel Systems Initiative will base its profiles on the proposed Fibre Channel interconnect standard in public review under guidelines of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Hewlett-Packard Company is an international manufacturer of measurement and computation products and systems recognized for excellence in quality and support. The company's products and services are used in industry, business, engineering, science, medicine and education in approximately 110 countries. HP has 93,100 employees and had revenue of $16.4 billion in its 1992 fiscal year. IBM's Advanced Workstations and Systems is responsible for the design, development and manufacture of the standards-based RISC Systems/6000 POWERstation/POWERserver* product family. These systems support more than 6,500 software applications available for IBM's AIX/6000* operating system, enabling users to maximize the power of the RISC system/6000 to meet their business needs. Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation, a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc., is the world's leading supplier of client-server computing solutions, which feature networked workstations and servers that store, process and distribute information. Used for many demanding commercial and technical applications, SMCC's products command the largest share of the computer industry's fastest-growing market segment: workstations and servers. Sun Microsystems, Inc., founded in 1982 and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a multi-billion dollar corporation doing business worldwide. ### IBM, RISC System/6000 POWERstation/POWERserver and AIX/6000 are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp. Sun, Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. and the Sun logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other products or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners. This announcement was made February 23, 1993. For more information please contact: Kathleen Ryan, IBM at (914) 642-4634 or Elizabeth Fairchild, FCSI at (415) 541-0873 or Kelly Emo, HP at (408) 447-5334 or Deeanna Franklin, SMCC PR at (415) 336-7226. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@Sun.COM. +1 305 351 4909.