OctaScale, NCR Corp’s contribution to the NT eight-way systems race, has slipped again, and won’t make it out now to customers until the end of the second quarter or beginning of the third, hears ClieNT Server News. It had been due in March. NCR says 30 to 50 of the machines, which now run both NT 4.0 and Unix, will spend the second quarter with internal development units inside the corporation as well as with Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and database houses for optimization. Volume shipments are now set for the second half, possibly beginning this summer, it said. The setback, which NCR seemed to ascribe to quality concerns, should bring the arrival of the OctaScales more in line with the debut of Corollary Inc’s rival Profusion technology, which was due in June and has now been pushed to August. The OctaScale delay should also affect Sequent Computer Systems Inc, NCR’s first OctaScale OEM customer. Both NCR and Sequent can tread water waiting for the OctaScale by supplying pre-OctaScale four-ways that use Intel four-way motherboards: these can be swapped out when the OctaScales arrive and upgraded to eight-ways. Corollary has been in the midst of lengthy licensing negotiations with Compaq Computer Corp recently.
