Letter From The President

10, 9, 8, ..., 3, 2, 1 -- Blast Off SPEC95

Published March, 1995; see disclaimer.

Let me begin with sincere thanks to SUN's team: Bodo Parady, Katherine Williams, Walter Bays and Nhan Chu for hosting the 7th annual SPEC meeting, and offer of two SUN machines to SPEC.

Congratulations to Siamak Hassanzadeh (SUN) and Fiona Sim (IBM) for election to HPSC Chair and Vice-Chair. Congratulations to Bhagyam Moses (DEC), Bodo Parady (SUN), Phil Vitale (HP) and Krishna Dronamraju (AT&T) who were reelected to the OSSC.

Congratulations to Tom Morgan (DG), Jeff Reilly (Intel) and Kaivalya Dixit (IBM) for election to the Board. We drafted Asif Naseem (AT&T) as our CFO. We reelected Larry Gray (HP) to continue planning mission for OSSC & HPSC and Tom Skornia to continue to be our legal secretary. Thank you all.

I want to CONGRATULATE Dianne Rice (SPEC), who worked until the real labor day (January 27, 1995), baby girl and dad.

Thank you Dave Kuck (KAI) for your influence, drive, perseverance and spiritual leadership in successful formation of HPSC.

You have to SPECulate on the future to deal with the present. SPEC has prospered because we have provided customers with a fair set of benchmarks and run-rules. Our critics told us about rampant optimization -- we listened and created "base-line" results. This listening is what makes us both open and credible.

I want to paraphrase Dr. David Patterson (UCB): SPEC has an awesome responsibility. Future System Architects, designers and compiler writers will design chips and systems based on SPEC benchmarks. As long as SPEC members vote their conscience, SPEC will be both credible and successful. I want each OSSC member to vote their conscience on benchmarks and run-rules. Please remember that your votes and ideas are very important to SPEC's future and its IMPACT on our industry.

As a Launch Director for SPEC95 -- get the suite out, so I can say: "Mr. Reilly -- Engage".

Finally, I want to thank all members and the board for their confidence and trust in me.

Kaivalya M. Dixit Copyright (c) 1995 Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation