Amy, here's a post I've been brewing for a while, mostly to do with other companies, but maybe a thread with Intel on something we've been talking about - selling Itanium.
I went to the E-Trade stockholders meeting the other day with a friend who has the stock. The meeting was not very good IMO compared with Intel's, AMAT's and LSI's that I've been to recently. That's not the point though. After, they offered a tour of their company, so we went along. Question came up re what computers E-Trade uses. The guide said Dell for their "associates" (that's what they call their employees), largely notebooks lately because they travel or take stuff home. For their enterprise, they use Sun. Someone asked if that had anything to do with the fact that Sun is right down the road and all over the place here (Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mt. View, Sunnyvale). The guide said no, it was because of their technology, including Solaris (assume he meant also their hardware), their reliability and their support. No surprises, right? These attributes are exactly what you look for in any computing or software or network company. So, Sun has done an excellent job of selling these things (scalability also), and has their customers, right down to the tour guide, singing out if their hymn book. Also, I'm not saying Sun hasn't earned this praise, but they are obviously also doing a good job getting a good image across.
Couple of other trivia pieces re E-Trade's enterprise, they have their computer center in Amaretta (sp) Georgia, and they have their own service and maintenance group.
I have no conclusion for this except that I do know you have to get all the stuff working first. Next, or along with, looks like Intel and their alliances, like HP, will be up against a pretty formidable competitor in Sun. Do they stress price advantage which they should achieve with Intel's SHV and the HPs and Compaq's of the world's ability to turn out boxes cheaper than Sun? I suspect it's that and they have to build a RAS and service story along with. I don't know how they (Intel and allies) begin to call on customers for Itanium boxes. Your turn.
Tony |
