Symbolics/Sony Marketing

[malcolm@spar-20.spar.slb.com]

[From today's EE Times.....copied without permission....

 Wow!!!.....  But why Sony????   Also, note NEWS is the name of the Sony 
 hardware that runs Unix while NeWS is the name of the Sun Postscript window 
 system.  The NEWS workstation uses the Sun Network File System (NFS).  I 
 don't remember which network window system Sony is using.          		
 
								Malcolm
 ]

New York.
Sony Microsystems Co. (Palo Alto, Calif.) and Symbolics, Inc.
(Cambridge, Mass.) have entered into an extensive technology and
marketing agreement.  Symbolics will sell Sony workstations and
develop a plug-in board to port symbolic processing capability to
Sony's Unix-based workstation line.

Under the agreement, Symbolics will be a reseller of Sony's
workstations, a move which is expected to extend Sony's market
penetration in the U.S. beyond the electronic publishing and
computer-aided software engineering businesses into the symbolic
processing market.

The agreement, details of which were still being hammered out last
week, also calls for an OEM arrangement between the two companies and
for Symbolics to provide hardware and software support in the U.S. for
the Sony NEWS line of engineering workstations.

Sony is a leading Japanese supplier of engineering workstations and is
seeking to establish its line of Unix workstations in a market
dominated by Sun Microsystems Corp., Apollo Computer Inc., Digital
Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and other domestic suppliers.

Getting the News
Symbolics will initially incorporate the Sony NEWS NWS-711 and NWS-841
workstations into its product offerings.  The workstations will add
high performance Unix functionality to Symbolics computer networks
used in artificial intelligence research, planning, diagnosis,
computer-aided software engineering and computer-aided design and
engineering, finance, image generation and image processing.

As part of the alliance, Sony and Symbolics will share new product
plans and engage in technical and sales training as well as
cooperative marketing programs.

Symbolics will also offer systems based on Sony's next-generation,
high-end NEWS workstations that will be integrated with other
Symbolics hardware, software and peripherals.

Tickling the Ivory
Future plans call for Symbolics to embed its "Ivory" single-chip
symbolic processor in a plug-in board for the NEWS workstation for use
in R&D and commercial AI applications, giving Sony workstation users
access to symbolic processing techniques.

Symbolics also said it plans to provide a version of its CLOE (Common
Lisp Operating System) layered software package for use with Sony
workstations.  With the package, AI applications developed on
Symbolics systems can be delivered on the Sony workstation without the
need for reprogramming.
         -- Richard Wallace

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