Compaq Computer’s Singapore Factory has shipped more than one million PCs in 1994 , a remarkable achievement considering that the group as a whole shipped less than this two years ago— said Compaq Asia Vice-President and Managing Director Kirl Moul.

On the eve of first evening ministerial factory visit by Singapore’s Trade & Industry Minister Yeo Cheow Tong on 15th December, 1994 Mr. Moul said this to the accompanying reporters.

Mr. Moul said, “The Singapore Plant is a major contributor to our worldwide operations, and we expect to do even better when our new plant is ready in 1996.”

He disclosed that raw material and component sourcing by Singapore-based Compaq Asia surpassed the US$ 1 billion mark annually,

Compaq, the world number one PC seller has five production facilities worldwide, the most recent additions being one in Mexico and another is Shenzhea (China).

“More than two-thirds of what we purchase for our production operations are from the Asia-Pacific region of which about 9% is from Singapore,” said Mr. Moul.

Mr. Yeo said, “We must maintain our competitive edge. We have to encourage more local companies to improve their process technology, and to work more closely with the multinational corporations (MNCs) like Compaq for technology transfers.” He cited Compaq as an MNC that has succeeded in tapping Singapore’s skilled manpower and competitive advantage to compete effectively in the fast changing PC industry.

Mr. Moul said, ” Time-to-market is crucial in this industry, and Singapore’s excellent infrastructure ensures that this is possible.” Asked if Singapore would lose out to neighboring low-cost countries, Mr. Yeo said, “We must concentrate on improving on high-tech capabilities. Ultimately, we just can’t afford to keep the low-tech, labour intensive operations here anyway.”

[ Compiled by—Azam Mahmod ]

In July Compaq Computer Corporation and Oracle announced the formation of the Compaq Business Unit at Oracle and Compaq/Oracle Alliance. The unit and the alliance were established in order to deliver more reliable, higher performance and easier to manage integrated database server platforms. Under this arrangement all Compaq Authorized Dealers will get Oracle Software and technical support directly from Compaq as they are now getting for Novell Netware, SCO Unix and Microsoft Nt.

Novell, Inc. is to leapfrog rivals Banyan Systems, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. by an integrated network management platform that will manage Netware and just about anything else within a corporate local area network installation.

Novell’s Netware Management System, a graphics-based system allows the network manager to centrally monitor real-time alerts and collect configuration information from multiple distributed LANs and servers.

Novell’s system will reach beyond the Netware environment to give users insight into everything from the health of a hub card to CPU and disk use on a LAN server to the status of an unitcr-rupliblc power supply, according to Janet Hyland, director of network strategy research at Forrester Research, Inc., who was briefed recently by Novell. “The momentum is incredible,” she added. Dozens of vendors have committed to supporting the system.

Compaq Computer Corp., for example, is already writing software to allow its servers to be managed by Novell’s platform.

The platform will also be able to manage Simple  Network  Management   Protocol compliant LAN systems, Hyland said.

Novell’s Netware Management System, a graphics-based system allows the network manager to centrally monitor real-time alerts and collect configuration information from multiple distributed LANs and servers.

Novell’s system will reach beyond the Netware environment to give users insight into everything from the health of a hub card to CPU and disk use on a LAN server to the status of an unitcr-rupliblc power supply, according to Janet Hyland, director of network strategy research at Forrester Research, Inc., who was briefed recently by Novell. “The momentum is incredible,” she added. Dozens of vendors have committed to supporting the system.

Compaq Computer Corp., for example, is already writing software to allow its servers to be managed by Novell’s platform.

The platform will also be able to manage Simple  Network  Management   Protocol compliant LAN systems, Hyland said.