Letter from the President

SPEC95 Beats Windows95 By Four Days

Congratulations to all SPEC members who worked very hard to make SPEC95 a success. SPEC members have reported about 140 pages of SPEC95 results! These numbers are significant and all SPEC members should take pride in this significant achievement. The headline in the Aug. 21, 1995 issue of Microprocessor Review, "SPEC95 Retires SPEC92", says it all.

SPEC95 creates a new level playing field for performance players of today and tomorrow. It is a brand new ball game for engineers who design chips, memory systems and compilers. Thanks go to Jeff Reilly (Intel), Jeff Garelick and Chris Chan-Nui (IBM), Paula Smith (DEC), Mike Paton (Motorola), Bodo Parady (SUN), Phil Vitale and Alex Carlton (HP), Reinhold Weicker (SNI), Krishna Dronamraju (AT&T), Scott Hinkley (DG), and many hardworking and talented engineers. SPEC95 would not have been possible without your dedication and significant contributions. SPEC and the computer industry are indebted to all of you. And we managed to beat Windows95's announcement by four days! Thanks to Chris, I have SPEC95 on CD-ROM.

I want to thank Dianne Rice (SPEC) and Rodney Sanford (NCGA) for their good work on the newsletter. I accept Walter Bays' kudos to Jeff Garelick and Chris Chan-Nui for automating SPEC92 results processing. This will cut down the length of the review cycle and frustrations.

I want to thank my fellow board members for making tough decisions and helping us prepare for the launch. Bob Cramblitt (SPEC PR) has sent the SPEC95 announcement folders to about 275 computer and business magazines to assure us broad coverage. Here is the quote of the week: "SPEC92 was a great success, but it is time to make the transition to standardized benchmarks that reflect the advances in chip technologies, compilers and applications that have taken place over the last three years; those benchmarks constitute SPEC95," (Kaivalya Dixit) on the HPCwire.

I know we have a plan for making SPEC92 obsolete. Looking at the acceptance of SPEC95, SPEC OSG should consider accelerating the current phase-out plan. I would like to thank Tom Skornia who helped us out with the California tax crisis; something I would like to forget. I am also looking forward to the release of the new suite from HPG. Everyone is asking me about SPEC95 for NT. Let us get that out as soon as possible so we do not have to release a new version right after we make the master CD-ROM. Finally, the size of this newsletter exceeds 200 pages, that means you already have too much to read.

Once again, thank you all for successful launch of SPEC95.

Kaivalya M. Dixit