Business Notes COMPUTERS

Even with computer sales in a slump, one type of machine is zooming in popularity: the workstation. These computers, which pack nearly the power of a mainframe into a desktop housing, increased in sales 30% last year, to $6 billion. Their phenomenal success has proved embarrassing for American computer giant IBM, which accounts for less than 2% of the workstation market.

Now IBM hopes to grab a bigger chunk. Last week Big Blue introduced a top- of-the-line workstation series called the RISC System/6000. The new machines' advanced circuitry is based on IBM's own RISC (for reduced- instruction-set computer) technology, which simplifies a computer's processing steps to speed up its work. IBM's new workstations will execute between 25 million and 40 million instructions a second, 20% faster than some other brands.