Fujitsu migration cuts shelf life of Sparc chip

Vendor promises to continue customer support as it ports Sparc server products to Intel platform

Fujitsu ICL has declared its intention to migrate Hypersparc, Supersparc Team Server and Superserver systems customers to the Intel platform, raising speculation that the company is abandoning its Sparc server business.

ICL was one of the earliest supporters of the Sparc chip and is the parent company of distributor Tplc, Sun?s master reseller. The company said more than 90 per cent of its 15,000 server sales for 1996 were Intel-based, but played down rumours that it planned to dump its Sparc business.

Jon Cutter, Fujitsu ICL general manager of business programmes, said: ?We still have many loyal Sparc customers and will continue to support them for the foreseeable future.?

However, Cutter confirmed that revenue generated by Sparc-based systems was falling and said the manufacturer planned to migrate its customer base over to NT on Intel, or Unixware on Intel.

?Our new customers and new channels are invariably taking Intel machines rather than Sparc machines. If we went to a new customer who wanted to buy a solution for us, unless he had a specific need for an application that ran in a Sparc environment, we would recommend an Intel solution.?

Sun Microsystems? reseller partner development manager Pete Deane said: ?All that the company has done is realise that the product based on its Hypersparc chipset was not as successful as the Ultrasparc range. This is an indication of its strategy as an integrator, but it?s no reflection on the Sparc platform overall.?

He said the Hypersparc chipset was outdated and less significant to the Sparc platform.