Eight-way server field steps to the foreground.(Compaq, HP and IBM show new machines at Comdex-Fall)(Product Announcement)

IT professionals will get their first glimpses of eight-way Intel servers at Comdex in Las Vegas next week, when IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Compaq show systems based on Intel's forthcoming Profusion eight- way chip set.

The Windows NT servers will not be available in volume until 1999's first quarter, but analysts said industry trends and customer requirements indicate that eight-way servers will be in demand.

"[Eight-way servers] will be eye-opening to a lot of IS executives who are used to four-way architectures and haven't explored consolidating servers," said James Gruener, a senior analyst at the Aberdeen Group, in Boston.

A source close to …