newsbytes@clarinet.com (02/04/90)
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 JAN 30 (NB) -- RISC or reduced instruction set computer, is sweeping the Japanese WS (workstation) market. One of the leading WS suppliers, Nihon Sun Microsystems, which is competing for the top share against YHP/Apollo or Yokogawa- Hewlett-Packard and Sony here in Japan, has predicted that RISC-based machines will make up 80 percent of its total shipments in fiscal 1990. The firm took the initiative with RISC architecture and expanded the WS market from CAD (computer-aided design) and CAM (computer- aided manufacturing) to the financial market this year. Before the release of SPARCStation, RISC-based workstations made up less than 30 percent of Sun shipments, but now 90 percent of the machines shipped are RISC-based. The RISC WS market in Japan is rapidly growing since RISC architecture is seen to offer superiority in distributed processing and high performance at a lower cost. The WS market is expected to amount to 160,000 units this year in Japan, for which YHP, DEC, Sony and non-RISC NeXT machine vie for the largest share. (Naoyuki Yazawa/19900201)