Fujitsu Siemens takes on Sun in Europe

The new company formed from the union of Fujitsu and Siemens has revealed that it will use a Sparc clone running 100 per cent binary-compatible Solaris for a future range of servers which will displace the RM MIPs-based servers it currently sells. According to Dr Josef Reger, strategic VP at Fujitsu Siemens Germany, it already has four and two-way machines available using a Sparc processor produced by Fujitsu subsidiary HAL and licensed by Sparc International. Next year, it will introduce eight-way systems in Q2 of next year, and will introduce a 64-way system at the end of the year 2000. Reger said that computer companies such as Fujitsu Siemens needed to be able to offer Unix, NT and mainframe machines, and that the Sun clone fills this need. Perhaps more interestingly, Siemens has lost market share to Sun in the last two years and wants to regain that position. The company said that it would be able to offer elements around the Sun clones that Sun could not offer itself, including integration, and a range of other services and products, including storage systems and software from third parties. Further, said Reger, it would compete aggressively against Sun in the European market, and, overall, he claimed that Fujitsu Siemens would be the number one supplier of PC and servers in Europe by the year 2001. The decision to adopt the Solaris model and to use the Sparc chip did not affect the relationship it has with Intel. He said that it would continue to develop Solaris for Merced-Itanium, and would also port the strangely named BS2000 mainframe software to the Merced-Itanium platform too. There are complications. Amdahl sells Sun Solaris systems and makes a considerable amount of dosh out of the deal. Reger says it is in negotiations with Amdahl to resell these systems but it is unclear what the outcome of these negotiations might be. But Siemens will put the US operations it currently has under the Amdahl wing towards the end of the year, executives confirmed. ®