No longer a rumour Reports were reaching The Register late tonight that Compaq is set to announce a series of layoffs at the Bellevue, WA plant in the US. The team in WA was involved in developing NT for the Alpha platform. If true, the rumours will be a further blow to Compaq. Around this time last year, the company, under the leadership of Eckhard Pfeiffer, proudly boasted the Alpha-NT as its flagship future development platform. Said senior Alpha and DEC analyst Terry Shannon: "While Compaq has yet to officially comment on these reports, I believe Compaq has seen the handwriting on the wall regarding Windows NT on Alpha. The Windows NT OS runs on a relatively small number of AlphaServers (a very low double-digit percentage of the 500K Alpha installed base runs NT) and Compaq accordingly is focusing its NT-related development resources on the Win64 port." Shannon added that Compaq's recent and increasing emphasis on Linux as an Alpha volume expansion solution represents a significant shift in the DEC/Compaq Alpha volume strategy. He said he would not be at all surprised to see Compaq substantially reduce its Windows-on-Alpha development efforts in the very near future. Mr. Shannon, in addition to being an analyst, has a wide following with end users as the editor of Shannon knows Compaq, a title that was formally known as Shannon knows DEC, before the Big Q takeover. Compaq has also outlined its Open VMS strategy, which can be found on Shannon's homepage, above. This is intriguing reading for end users, like what we all are... ®