Intel chips in to Tandem
The hardware manufacturer will unveil its first servers based on Intel chips and running Windows NT, the first major product revamping under CEO Roel Pieper.
Pieper, who has run the company for nine months, will be joined at the New York event by Microsoft Executive Vice President Steve Ballmer. Tandem will position its computers to handle electronic commerce applications for large customers, while Microsoft hopes to reach Tandem's many financial services customers with its Normandy, Back Office, and Merchant server software.
"This is the first big announcement under Roel, and it's a major solutions and product revamp," said Tandem's Chris Rooke, vice president of corporate marketing. "It's very significant for the company, from that point of view."
Tandem, which will introduce servers based on Intel's Pentium Pro processor, will announce that it has ported its ServerNet architecture to the NT platform. ServerNet is a clustering technology that works within a single computer or in a network of computers to distribute data to multiple processors.
Next week's announcement is the first solid result of the relationship with Microsoft, first announced in May. Tandem also is refreshing its own Unix-based line of Himalaya servers and positioning it for electronic commerce.