Vendors start engines for NT 4 product race

Hardware companies will attempt to capitalise on the introduction of Microsoft's NT 4 final beta next month and will roll out Pentium Pro work-stations based on the platform.

Hewlett Packard, Intel, IBM and Compaq will all announce 200MHz-based machines even though they are not likely to ship until August, according to sources in the US.

IBM had previously announced its intention to ship servers which could run both NT and AIX. Like IBM, Hewlett Packard's machines will overlap with some of its own workstations which run Unix operating systems.

In the meantime, Microsoft proved confident that its final beta of NT is stable. It hopes to roll out the gold version towards the end of June and has included Internet services into the latest revision.

Compaq is expected to introduce its own NT servers later than Hewlett Packard and IBM as it revisits its own PC architecture in favour of Intel's.

Plans by some vendors to go the whole hog and major on Pentium Pro quad SMP systems are likely to be delayed by problems with Intel's motherboards.

Other major vendors, including Motorola, will follow suit towards the end of the year as NT gains market share.