what intc did to the desktop, they will do to the server.
Seems like it might be worth noticing that Intel makes chips, where it has had dominant market share, motherboards, where it sells some, and sometimes systems, where it hasn't sold a lot. I.e., what Intel has done to the desktop is to supply chips which, by and large, other people used to build systems that now dominate the desktop, but do so because of the WinTel combination, not because of Intel's own superiority in systems.
On the system side, people have been making servers for as long as the Intel chips have been around. As time has gone on, the more and more powerful Intel chips have seemed more relevant for the server since who needs that much power on the desktop (at least until MSFT comes out with a new bloated version that soaks up that power). And, at the low end those Intel-based servers have become more and more common, some running NT (to help soak up that extra power) and some running a version of Unix (for people who actually care). But, Intel-based servers have never been a very strong force in larger servers despite the efforts of Sequent and the like to make them so. Ever more powerful Intel chips will raise the barrier some, but really being successful in moving up the ladder will require very good system architecture ... something the RISC boys have been good at for a long time. |
