The International Workshop on Database Machines in Munich is the third of its kind, preceeded by the meetings in Florence (Sept. 81) and San Diego (Sept. 82). The workshop is aimed at providing an interchange of ideas and experience on computer systems designed to perform database operations more efficiently than general purpose computers with a software database management system. Many proposals have been published during the past 10 years, but now several systems have been built and practically implemented and some are even commercially available, so that confrontation with the real world is starting to occur. The kinds of question which arise during this phase of coming to maturity are those involved with evaluation and measurement. The emphasis of the workshop is therefore on performance evaluation and the respective modelling techniques and methodology. Data flow and other new topics (including algorithms) are also treated with respect to performance and efficiency. We are glad to be able to include some papers on existing commercial products - from both the designer and the user viewpoints. We hope to encourage critical comments in this field and have arranged a session with the title "Where Database Machines Are Going" - to be followed by a panel dis~ussion.
