Rod - Re:"don't count the other server quality
cpu makers out quite yet. "
I won't. Sun, by virtue of its long time presence in the Unix community has a strong, entrenched position in the server and workstation market. Their processor architectures haven't always been the best, but today they are competitive.
As for SGI - I believe they are wounded - not mortally, but they have lost momentum.
As for DEC - Their Alpha chips are the fastest around albeit due to brute force clock speeds - and they should do OK in niche places where their Alpha gives them distinct advantages.
Re: NT portability - sure its portable, but you have to carry a lot of baggage with it. But, portable doesn't mean binary compatible. All NT OSes and applications have to be re-compiled for each hardware platform.
The NT applications on x86 platforms is by far and away the largest segment of this market. So, Intel dominates and will continue to dominate here.
As for JAVA - it's portable also. But will it sell new CPU architectures (a la the NC?) or just run on the existing and more ubiquitous CPUS? Too early to tell.
As for Intel and its significant challenges - Intel has seen these since the Motorola 68000, the early RISC machines, the ACE initiative, the MIPS 4000, SPARC, AMD/Cyrix clones, etc. It has withstood these attacks very well by improving its own processor perfromance.
Intel seems to be positioned even better today with multiprocessor Pentium Pros, MMX extensions, P7, advanced wafer fab processes, a large wafer fab capacity. Intel is not asleep at the switch nor resting on its laurels. The upcoming battles will be tough, and Intel will be in there fighting all the way.
Paul |
