11/18/96 DEC PUTS ITS CHIPS ON AN UNKNOWN

DEC PUTS ITS CHIPS ON AN UNKNOWN

HERE'S ANOTHER SIGN OF weakness at Digital Equipment. It's about to announce that its high-performance Alpha chip has been tapped for a new PC line. From Gateway 2000? Compaq? Nope. Tiny Enorex Microsystems, an Edison (N.J.) startup.
Analysts call this a comedown, one that underscores the challenge CEO Robert Palmer has of fixing money-losing Digital. The company, says Kevin Hause of International Data Corp., ''would have loved to announce something with a name PC maker. But they couldn't find one.'' All the major PC players are committed already to Intel's chips.
A Digital exec plays down the Enorex deal's importance: ''We don't look for it to be a barn-burner.'' The company won't comment on its well-known wooing of big-time PC makers to adopt the Alpha chip. Enorex PCs, priced at $2,999 to $5,499, will bypass traditional computer resellers and seek out its customers with mailings and phone calls. Digital says the new Alpha computers are aimed at the low end of the $3.2 billion workstation market, which IDC projects will quadruple by 2000. One problem: Enorex has an uphill battle selling powerful workstations to engineers via a catalog.
EDITED BY LARRY LIGHT
By Paul C. Judge