Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG has stuck resolutely to mainstream computing technologies and has not pioneered anything exotic since Siemens years ago inherited the scientific machine developed by Telefunken Computers GmbH, and that didn’t last long. It is a serious player in scientific supercomputers, but only by virtue of the VP machines it buys OEM from […]
Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG has stuck resolutely to mainstream computing technologies and has not pioneered anything exotic since Siemens years ago inherited the scientific machine developed by Telefunken Computers GmbH, and that didn’t last long. It is a serious player in scientific supercomputers, but only by virtue of the VP machines it buys OEM from Fujitsu Ltd. Now it has gone out of house again for an emerging technology, agreeing a preliminary marketing pact with Henry Burkhardt’s Kendall Square Research Corp. Kendall Square is pioneering massively parallel processing for the commercial world with its KSR1 machine, and Siemens Nixdorf will market it through its Scientific Computing Branch to technical and scientific users. The KSR1 systems scale from eight to 1,088 proprietary processors. Kendall Square has several offices in Western Europe that will work with the Scientific Computing Branch to market and support KSR1 systems. Initial efforts will include training, collateral, trade shows and industry exhibits. Europe presently accounts for about 45% of the company’s sales. Burkhardt notes that the would-be partners are in the final stages of negotiation, adding that European, and in particular German users, have recognised the potential for parallel processing to enable rapid development of new products and services. In Germany, the per capita expenditure for computers is higher than it is in the US, he reckons.
