Computer Resolutions Starts Distributing Unisys Products

Computer Resolutions Unisys solution provider

Computer Resolutions, based here, handles the full line of Unisys servers from the two-way and four-way models OEMed from Dell Computer to its latest mainframe-class models, including the vendor's line of printers, check encoders and other products aimed at the banking and financial industry.

The company became a distributor just in time to take on Unisys' new line of three mainframe-class servers, which were unveiled on Monday.

Carl Palmieri, CEO of Computer Resolutions, said the company had distributed Unisys products seven or eight years ago when Unisys sold desktop PCs and claimed a base of about 15,000 solution providers. However, today the company has a list of about 200 potential Unisys solution providers, including between 25 and 50 that are looking to resell Unisys' mainframes.

Computer Resolutions recently hired Pam Doran, formerly in charge of Unisys' channel business, to handle relations with its own solution providers, said Palmieri. "She's a great help [to us," he said.

Computer Resolutions is one of Unisys' largest solution providers and will continue to work directly with customers even as it becomes a distributor, Palmieri said. The company also acts as a solution provider in partnership with IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Compaq Computer, EMC, StorageTek and Veritas Software, he said.

The company also works with brands not commonly seen outside of the banking business, including Italy-based Olivetti and others, said Palmieri. Solution providers that work with banks can source such products from Computer Resolutions, he said.

Computer Resolutions tries to make it easy to work with Unisys, Palmieri said. "We can help solution providers sell products and work with their clients, or solution providers can act as a sales organization and bring us in for the services," he said.

Unisys' three new mainframe servers offer improved performance and scalability as well as other new features, said Rod Zapp, director of ClearPath marketing for the vendor.

The new servers reflect Unisys' heritage as the combination of Sperry and Burroughs, two former mainframe vendors that merged to form Unisys in 1986.

Among those new features is storage on demand, under which a server can be shipped with one Tbyte of capacity installed, but that capacity can be turned on in chunks of 150 Mbytes as needed by customers, said Zapp. The company also introduced workload pricing, under which the per-MIPS (millions of instructions per second) charges related to a physical partition can be discounted by 50 percent when used for application development.

Among the new products is the CS7201, which now uses up to 32 900MHz Intel processors and can now be divided into up to eight partitions, up from four in the past. The CD7201 can be used for both Windows and MCP environments. MCP is the legacy Burroughs operating system environment.

Also new is the CS7402, a midrange server replacing the company's IX6000 series of servers. It has up to 16 Unisys CMOS-based processors and can be divided into up to four partitions. The CS7802 is similar but has up to 32 processors in up to eight partitions. Both run Windows and OS2200 environments. OS2200 is the legacy Sperry operating system environment.

Zapp said the ability to combine Windows and legacy mainframe environments on a single server will give legacy customers a chance to consolidate multiple servers to a single box while testing the Windows environment for future use.