From the Inquirer.
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Samsung can make Alphas 'forever'
Or not, whichever comes earlier
By Mike Magee, 29/06/01 10:44:21 BST
ALTHOUGH SAMSUNG AND the strange child that it and Compaq fathered, API, are keeping remarkably quiet about the Intel Big Deal earlier this week, it appears that EV6 and EV7 are safe in its hands. Cough.
Even though neither API nor Samsung have made official statements on the move, it appears that Samsung will retain the rights to make EV6 products for at least the next 12 years - provided there is a demand for the products, we understand.
The nearest we have to an official statement came two days ago, when 3D Now managed to talk to an API executive.
He told the site that the transition is "a few years out", although the statement is lukewarm about API's involvement with the Alpha chip. We've pointed out over recent weeks that this seemed to be the direction the firm was taking.
API has also moved to re-assure its customers. A letter it wrote earlier this week said: "The announcement has no impact on current shipments of ALpha based products." It added that the announcement was needed to give "Compaq's largest customers and partners the opportunity to plan the massive programs required in a move to a new architecture." API Networks - like the rest of the industry - will have until EV8 (2004) to make changes to processors.
It also seemed to cuddle up closer to firms like AMD, with the following statement: "We will continue to explore processor neutral technology".
And IBM can also make EV7 products for a seemingly unlimited period of time, although how this could possibly work for longer than a couple of years puzzles us too. We actually think that now Lou Gerstner is a British knight of the realm, the real fight over the next few years will be IBM versus HP, Dell and the rest.
Now this is all a little tantalising because as far as we can gather, there was some cunning little plan for AMD and API/Samsung to work together on some new technology, putting AMD Athlons into its mobos, and we're not entirely sure whether that's still a runner.
You may recall we published details of a PDF a few weeks back which described how Alpha processors could fit into AMD 760MP mobos.
Many are still puzzled as to the exact nature of the "multi-year" plan that allowed Q to cede its Alpha technology to Intel, and this SEC document casts little new light on the deal at all.
On the face of it, it seems to suggest that even when AMD produces its Hammer 64-bit technology, Compaq is excluding itself from using it, as in " consolidate its entire 64-bit server family on the Itanium architecture."
The picture for API NetWorks is all the more puzzling because, as it says on its Web site, its primary goal now is to enable developers to design HyperTransport (LDT) technology into the market place, in conjunction with AMD (See this page.)
The link from its main page to the Broadcom, Cisco, AMD announcement appears to now be broken.
And so we are totally unsure where that leaves API Networks. Given that it is a privately held firm by both Compaq and Samsung, we'd be interested to hear some official statement from it.
The last word we have about API on Compaq's own site is this white paper about Open VMS Alpha.
We may never get any official word. However if you, our readers, know any better what's going on, perhaps you'd drop us a line. µ
* SOME GOOD NEWS for Compaq today. A Reuters report said Ericsson saw no financial implications in the switch from Alpha to Itanium processors. Ericsson had planned to move its telco backnone to Alpha servers and a report in a Swedish paper had suggested that such a move would cost it a fair deal of money. This is now apparently being denied. |
