Check out Andy Grove's Merced forecast at search.nytimes.com.
No one has a better understanding of the pace of change in computing, and the risks inherent in each new generation of technology, than Andrew Grove, Intel's chairman and driving force.
"When a change in how some element of one's business is conducted becomes an order of magnitude larger than what that business is accustomed to, then all bets are off," he wrote in his 1996 best seller, "Only the Paranoid Survive" (Currency/Doubleday, $27.50). "There's wind and then there's a typhoon, there are waves and then there's a tsunami."
Merced has the potential to create that kind of computer industry tsunami, and Grove obviously believes he knows how to ride it: Cautiously.
Asked recently how long it would take for the chip to become the heart of the company's product line, he said: "It will be very slow. Not in the next five years. I don't see Merced appearing on a mainstream desktop inside of a decade."
He's making a realistic projection, not some overly cautious statement to avoid the possibility of a shareholder lawsuit. "All bets are off" means that anything is possible - including failure. A 10 year desktop ramp implies that the server ramp will be 5 years. If server apps were compute-bound, the DEC Alpha would've been a smash hit. Apps are I/O bound, so mainframe-style I/O processors are needed, but a standards war is being waged by I2O (Intel and Wind River) against FutureIO (3 of the top 5 server vendors - Compaq, IBM, and H-P).
Phoenix will get 3-10 times more for Merced BIOS than an x86 BIOS, but it's unclear whether that will compensate for the slow ramp. |
