AT&T;’s NCR Unit Is Ringing In Ahead of IBM

American Telephone & Telegraph Co.’s NCR unit is set to pull ahead of International Business Machines Corp. in the battle for the promising market for parallel processing systems, powerful computers that rival IBM’s core mainframe machines.

Today, NCR will introduce an upgrade of its current parallel processing line, the NCR 3600.

On Tuesday, IBM, which is overdue in introducing the first version of its next-generation parallel processing mainframe, will brief reporters on its strategy.

Parallel processing machines use tens, hundreds or even thousands of off-the-shelf, low-cost microprocessors linked together to work simultaneously on separate parts of complex problems, providing fast, relatively cheap computing power.

These high-powered computers are good at some of the data-intensive functions at which mainframe computers excel, such as querying databases or processing huge volumes of live, on-line transactions.

IBM, with its bread-and-butter mainframe business in decline, is seeking to revive that business with lower-cost, parallel machines. The Armonk, N.Y., company has said its future generation of ES/9000 mainframes will be parallel processors, developed around its existing 390 mainframe architecture.