Unisys serves up challenge to IBM

Unisys says the servers feature capacity-on-demand, allowing users to turn extra power on and off at will to match spikes in demand.

At the launch in Paris, Unisys unveiled its new ClearPath Plus servers, run on proprietary operating systems but incorporating both proprietary and Intel-based chips.

While a number of hardware makers, including IBM, offer a form of capacity-on-demand to deliver computing power when it is needed, Unisys claims to be the only company to offer the ability to turn this off after the usage spike has passed.

Kevin McHugh, Unisys VP of marketing and management, said: "Suddenly, with the growth of the internet, companies have many more potential customers who could all request services simultaneously. This makes it much harder to predict demand and vital that firms have the ability to switch computing power off and on according to their customers."

Unisys says the servers will be available by August this year.

Unisys also revealed it intends to consolidate its development around the Intel chip architecture. Leo Daiuto, CTO at Unisys, said he could foresee phasing out their proprietary chips by 2003: "As soon as the Intel architecture becomes good enough, the chip space is not where we want to be spending our R&D dollars"."