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Sun Microsystems, Inc. has new entrants in the client/server market: high-end symmetrical multiprocessing enterprise servers and a multiprocessor system on the desktop for multimedia applications.
Sun Chief Executive Officer Scott McNealy pushed the concept of a multiprocessor power desktop at the recent SunWorld '94 here, saying that multiprocessor machines will be able to tackle power-hungry multimedia and videoconferencing applications without sacrificing performance.
LACKING APPLICATIONS
"Why not throw in two or four or even eight microprocessors on the desktop?" McNealy asked SunWorld attendees (see related column, page 8). (Page 8 omitted). "There's no reason not to, [except] that the software hasn't been written to take advantage of it."
Analysts agreed that progress toward multiprocessor software applications for the desktop is slow. Independent software vendors are not yet moving quickly to embrace the multiprocessor desktop as they await more demand from users, analysts said.
Industry analysts and users agreed that Sun's hardware plan for multiprocessor desktops was running ahead of the available base of applications software. Dominic Ricchetti, director of workstation research at Dataquest, Inc., said most relational database applications can easily be moved to multiprocessor desktops. But users and independent...