Compaq invests to boost Windows 2000 server plans
By: Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com
1/10/01 12:27:00 PM
Source: News.com
Compaq Computer has taken a major, new step in its effort to make Intel-based servers bigger and
better, investing in Stratus Technologies and signing a deal to sell computers based on Stratus'
high-end designs.
Intel and DB Capital Partners, a part of Deutsche Bank, joined Compaq in the $115 million funding
round, Stratus chief executive Stephen C. Kiely said Wednesday. The company, which Kiely
described as "very profitable," said the deal increased Stratus' valuation and moves it a step toward
an initial public offering.
Maynard, Mass.-based Stratus isn't the only company to benefit from
interest in more powerful or less crash-prone Intel servers, which for
most of their history have been consigned to lower-end tasks than
more expensive Unix servers and mainframes. Compaq also signed a
deal to sell high-end 32-processor Intel servers designed by Unisys.
Hewlett-Packard, one of Compaq's biggest competitors, also is
working to strengthen its Intel servers. It struck a deal to sell Unisys'
32-processor ES7000 systems and licensed a high-end server design
from Stratus competitor Marathon Technologies.
Stratus builds computers that have redundant internal components
such as memory, network cards and CPUs. If the primary component
fails, its backup immediately takes over and operates until a
replacement part is installed.
Stratus' high-end machines currently use Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC
CPUs, but the company is adding a new product based on Intel chips
and Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system.
The new Intel system will be cheaper, appeal to new customers, and
sell in higher volume, the company said. Eventually the new systems
will become the most important part of its product line. The systems
are being tested and will become generally available in March or April,
Kiely said.
Compaq doesn't plan to sell Stratus-built computers with a Compaq logo glued to the outside but
rather will incorporate Stratus technology into its own computer designs, said Vince Gayman,
director of high-availability server marketing at Compaq.
Those new Compaq systems likely won't arrive until 2002, he said.
A key part of Stratus' switch to "Wintel" designs is licensing its hardware to other, better-known
companies. That effort began in June, when the company signed a deal with NEC.
The deal with Compaq is a two-way exchange, as Stratus will get access to some of Compaq's
technology as well, Kiely said. Though Compaq and Stratus haven't yet decided what that technology
might be, Stratus is interested in having access to Compaq's broad range of hardware such as
network cards and stand-alone storage systems, he added.
Because most of the Stratus fault-tolerant architecture works through specialized hardware, it's not
too difficult to accommodate various operating systems such as Linux or Solaris, Kiely said. But for
now, the company will stick with Windows 2000 for the Intel-based servers.
"In the short term, there's a huge opportunity with Windows 2000," he said. "For us it would be
somewhat defocusing to look beyond the Windows 2000 environment."
Curiously, Stratus' biggest competitor is Compaq, which makes a high-end Tandem server line that
uses redundant hardware components to achieve fault-tolerance. But while the Tandem design
competes with Stratus' products, the new Intel-based Stratus servers are in a lower-end class, the
companies said.
Given the breadth of computer corporations' product lines, "It's difficult to cooperate in our industry"
on one product without competing with another, Kiely said.
"We don't see it as an issue," Gayman said. "We don't anticipate this being any kind of conflict or
overlap." |
