New York Ð NeXT holds this truth to be self-evident: It makes great client workstations, but a number of other companies make great servers.
Thus, the company came to UNIX Expo here in September with a declaration of server independence, backed up by two new technical and marketing agreements with makers of high-performance network servers Ð Auspex Systems and Solbourne Computer. Together with previous involving Data General, NCR/Teradata, and Pyramid Technology, NeXT's server strategy lets large NeXT sites choose the high-end server system that best suits their needs.
In a related development, Melbourne, Australia-based Xedoc (formerly Codex) Software Development announced a port of NeXT's network-management software, NetInfo, for SPARC servers, extending its existing product for SPARC clients (see "NeXT licenses NetInfo," NeXTWORLD Extra, June 1992). The server product will ship in the fourth quarter for $2500 per server license.
"For many of our customers, the desktop decision comes before the server decision. Our business relationships with the companies that manufacture servers means we can recommend a variety of back-end systems across a range of server classes," said Erna Arnesen, NeXT's director of channel sales.
The relationships come in three flavors: OEM, technical development, and marketing partnership. To date, only Data General is a NeXT OEM, which enables the company to resell NeXT equipment. The other four companies have both technical development and marketing agreements with NeXT. Each company adds some form of development to integrate its products with NeXT, and each has a marketing agreement with NeXT through which the partners target customers with specific client-server needs.
Each server company has its own area of strength. Auspex's UNIX-based NetServers provide quick file access and large storage capacity in departmental installations.
Auspex announced it will support and comarket the Xedoc NetInfo SPARC Server Edition. Solbourne's SPARC-compliant symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers are optimized for compute-intensive database applications. The company announced an OEM agreement with Xedoc that will allow it to resell Xedoc client software.
Among the companies that previously announced agreements with NeXT, Data General makes SMP servers designed for high reliability and performance in database applications. Data General will do its own port of NetInfo for its AViiON servers. Teradata, acquired this year by NCR, specializes in enterprisewide information systems in banking, transportation, and other markets. It provides an adapter for NeXT's DBKit. Pyramid's MIServers provide extremely high performance for data-center applications. Pyramid will also port NetInfo.
Arnesen said more server relationships will be announced in the future.