Digital And Microsoft Think Big

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January 29, 1998 (8:38 AM EST)

By Amy Rogers,

SAN FRANCISCO -- Wednesday, the CEOs of Digital Equipment and Microsoft outlined plans for expanding what has evolved into a fruitful, almost 3-year-old partnership for both companies.

Digital's Robert Palmer and Microsoft's Bill Gates made a joint appearance in San Francisco to discuss the companies' plans to extend Windows NT support for Digital's Alpha processors, collaborate on symmetric multiprocessor and 64-bit systems with Win NT 5.0, wrap mainframe functionality into Win NT, and press on with other efforts already underway.

At a news conference, Palmer said the pending acquisition of his company by Compaq will only strengthen the existing technology and marketing deals Digital enjoys with Microsoft.

A merged Compaq-Digital entity would "make us the most viable NT solutions provider in the business," Palmer said.

Gates, afflicted by a nagging cough, agreed between jags that "the combination of Compaq and Digital is great for NT."

Digital has big plans to expand its already impressive base of customers using Microsoft's BackOffice family on Digital servers. Palmer said about 2 million of all Microsoft Exchange seats use Digital on the back end, and added that one Digital Alpha 4100 server can support up to 10,000 Exchange seats.

Palmer also reiterated Digital's commitment to the OpenVMS platform, which some pundits have said would not be long for this world under the would-be Compaq-Digital powerhouse.

"It's still better than anyone's Unix, including our own" when it comes to sheer processing power, Palmer said. "We will continue to sell OpenVMS and support OpenVMS, and I have a commitment from Eckhard Pfeiffer on that. Compaq is totally committed to protecting its $10 million investment."

Gates offered a crumb of new information on Win NT 5.0, which is the first NOS under which many of the services and technologies mentioned today will work.

"We expect beta two before the middle of the year, and based on customer feedback we get from beta two, we will commit to a final ship date," he said. "Our top priority is making sure this is a superior, high-quality product."

Gates said support for Very Large Memory -- essential to running 64-bit systems -- will be included in the second beta of NT 5.0.

Microsoft's and Digital's increased development and marketing efforts ought to strike fear into the world's biggest computer company, analysts said.

"If IBM isn't nervous about this, they should be," said Martin Marshall, an analyst with Zona Research, in Redwood City, Calif. "On the front line is the AS/400 group. Those are the ones Digital and Microsoft are taking direct aim at. How do they use IBM's edge in reliability [of the AS/400]? IBM will have to play that card in the interim."