Two losing quarters?
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What Happened to Alpha?
In the early 1990s, when David Cutler and his team began to
design the next-generation Windows OS, creating an OS that
was portable between platforms was a principle design
goal—a goal the team borrowed from the UNIX playbook.
The team imagined this new technology, which they called
Windows NT, as one that could span the entire computer
industry. To achieve this flexibility, the team adapted many
design concepts from team members who had worked at
Digital Equipment on VMS.
To port the system, Cutler's team wrote the microkernel, then
compiled the first version of NT for the MIPS processor. The team compiled the second
version for the Intel x86 processor family, and the third version ran on Digital Equipment's
Alpha processor. The team also worked on an NT version for the PowerPC platform.
Microsoft abandoned support for the MIPS and PowerPC processors, but NT has supported
Intel and Alpha since the OS's inception—until now.
In late August, Compaq announced that the company will no longer sell Alpha for the NT
platform. Rumors circulated that Compaq had laid off 120 engineers who had been working
on NT and Alpha at the company's DECwest research facility, but that wasn't the case. A few
of the engineers are finishing Service Pack 6 (SP6) for NT 4.0, and Compaq reassigned
other engineers to the IA-64 (i.e., Intel's processor architecture) team. Compaq will continue
its 64-bit Windows development, but only in terms of developing Windows 2000 (Win2K) for
the Intel architecture. So, Compaq will continue to support its current NT-on-Alpha
customers, but no future versions of Windows will run on Alpha. Nearly 2 years into Win2K's
development, and only a few months before Win2K's scheduled release, Compaq has
pulled the plug. This decision caught many people in the NT community by surprise.
Microsoft took about a week to respond to Compaq's announcement. When Microsoft did
respond, the company stated that it was discontinuing development of Win2K for the Alpha
processor family. The discontinuance was for 32-bit and 64-bit Win2K support. So, any hope
of a rescue, or for other companies with licenses to produce Alpha computers (such as
Alpha Processor) to carry on production, is gone. From this point forward, Microsoft will
design Win2K for only the Intel architecture. The loss of hardware diversity for Win2K isn't
good news, and Compaq is taking a lot of heat for this decision. The discontinuance of
Win2K support for Alpha sounded like a Microsoft decision, but a senior Compaq strategist
said Compaq made the decision: Microsoft realized that even if Win2K for Alpha shipped,
Compaq wouldn't sell Alpha systems for Win2K.
In Alpha's long history at Digital Equipment and more recently at Compaq, NT-on-Alpha
sales have represented a tiny portion of NT hardware purchases. In current reports,
Compaq said NT accounts for about 2 percent of AlphaServer sales. (UNIX accounts for the
overwhelming majority of AlphaServer sales.) Terry Shannon, longtime Digital Equipment
and Compaq watcher and the editor of Shannon Knows Compaq, said more than 500,000
Alpha systems have been sold, but only between 10 and 15 percent of those systems run
NT. When you compare these numbers with the 40 million computers running NT, you
begin to appreciate how poorly NT on Alpha was doing.
What happened to Alpha? Alpha systems have always suffered a price-for-performance
penalty when compared with Intel systems running NT. This penalty was a major factor in
Alpha's poor sales. The other major factor in poor Alpha sales was that a scarcity of
software exploited the power of the Alpha. With Compaq's recent introduction of Intel 8-way
Profusion servers, Compaq management realized that Alpha sales muddied the water for
their sales folk and caused them to compete against one another.
The Alpha processor's considerable performance edge over competitive Intel
microprocessors made the processor significant throughout its history. This performance
advantage was because of an innovative RISC design, the elements of which illegally
ended up in Intel's architecture. When Digital Equipment sold its Alpha chip facility to Intel,
the companies reached an internal settlement on the RISC design dispute.
Intel shipped the first prototypes of its 64-bit Itanium (formerly code-named Merced) chip to
its partners in September, but Alpha already ran 64-bit software. At the time that Compaq
was abandoning further 32-bit Alpha development, the company hoped to continue
development for 64-bit Win2K on Alpha. Rumors suggested that Microsoft was
contemplating releasing 64-bit Windows on Alpha first. And while Compaq and Microsoft
were making the decisions about the future of 64-bit Win2K on Alpha, Cutler's team was
booting the first versions of 64-bit Win2K on an AlphaServer (a classic Allan Janus project).
The story emerging is that after Microsoft heard that Compaq would no longer develop Alpha
for the 32-bit versions of Win2K and NT, Microsoft lost interest in developing the 64-bit
version of Win2K for Alpha. Microsoft felt that Alpha couldn't be commercially successful
without continued 32-bit development. And if Alpha wasn't successful in the 32-bit market,
how could it be successful on the 64-bit OS?
On Compaq's side, the company probably wondered if other companies would ever
commercially deploy 64-bit Win2K on Alpha. Compaq surmised from its discussions with
Microsoft that commercial deployment would have depended on when 64-bit Win2K
became available, how Intel's architecture was selling, and whether Alpha sales had picked
up. So, Compaq faced the possibility that when 64-bit Win2K became available on Alpha,
the company wouldn't have enough of a market window to exploit the 64-bit OS on Alpha
against the 64-bit OS on Intel's x86 platform. Most likely, Compaq balked at producing 64-bit
Win2K on Alpha systems because the company assumed it couldn't sell the
Win2K-on-Alpha systems.
The marketplace might have spoken regarding NT on Alpha, but probably not. The vendors
greatly contributed to the poor sales of NT on Alpha. Microsoft, preferring to remain a neutral
party, didn't advocate earnestly the benefits of Alpha. Digital Equipment and Compaq didn't
price and market Alpha correctly.
To fully demonstrate Alpha's advantages, Microsoft needed to deliver a 64-bit OS that could
employ the chip's capabilities. Internal memos presented at Microsoft's Department of
Justice (DOJ) trial expressed Intel's impatience with Microsoft for the slow pace of its 64-bit
OS development. To imagine that Compaq felt the same way is easy.
Despite Compaq's abandonment of Win2K on Alpha, the company continues to express its
support for the development of other 64-bit OSs on Alpha. Compaq will makes its Alpha
development effort in Tru64 UNIX. And in anticipation of a 64-bit Linux release, Compaq will
also target more Alpha sales toward Linux. Compaq is in the middle of porting its language
tools over to Linux to aid in this development effort. Although the measurable Linux volume
on Alpha is small, Compaq and Alpha Processor are turning Alpha into a Linux play. This
opportunity shouldn't have arisen, and Microsoft probably isn't happy about it.
Compaq continues to express support of Alpha to its staff and business partners. Compaq
assured Samsung, which is Compaq's Alpha chip partner and backs Alpha Processor, that
the company remains committed to selling Alpha systems in volume, which is the task at
hand for Alpha Processor.
Enrico Pesatori, Compaq's senior vice president and group general manager of the
Enterprise Solutions and Services Group, recently circulated an internal memo to the team.
The memo stated that the decision to stop development of Alpha for Win2K in no way
diminishes Compaq's strong partnership with Microsoft or the company's commitment to
Alpha. Pesatori said, "We continue to invest in Alpha as a core component of our NonStop
eBusiness strategy, including next-generation Alpha chip technology and a robust Alpha
systems roadmap. We will drive Alpha at the high end of the enterprise market in which our
strengths in 64-bit platforms, NonStop technology, and clustering give us a competitive
advantage."
None of the factors leading to Compaq's decision are new; the same situation was true of
NT on Alpha a year ago. So, I'm left to ponder Alpha's late departure from the Win2K game.
I'm drawn to the conclusion that Compaq's decision boiled down to a financial punt.
Compaq just ended two losing quarters and needs a couple of quarters to turn the
company's financing around. Unless the numbers improve, Compaq will need to cut into the
services group to improve its margins. Ultimately, Alpha on Win2K was thrown out of the
game because its prospects weren't good. |
