Doug, just thought I would drop this excerpted from an article on the Alpha,and Compaq's possible plan for it.
A spokeswoman for Digital Semiconductor, in Hudson, Mass., would state only that "Alpha is full steam ahead. I don't believe that the [deal] is being negotiated, as it was part of the settlement process."
When asked if the Compaq-Digital deal means the Digital-Intel settlement remains in place, an Intel spokesman responded: "We believe it does, we are proceeding as if it does, but we don't know one way or the other."
Executives at Samsung Semiconductor America, San Jose, Calif., said they too expect Alpha will be embraced by Compaq, rather than discarded.
"Alpha has failed not from a technology standpoint, but from the marketing side," said Y.J. Kim, Alpha marketing manager at Samsung. "In the process of moving their servers to Merced, I think Compaq realized that something was missing, and that was Alpha."
Regarding Intel's role in the marketplace, legal experts said they believe the Compaq acquisition will be viewed favorably by the FTC. Like the investigation into Microsoft by the Department of Justice, the FTC's investigation of Intel will concentrate less on Intel's established dominance of the microprocessor industry and more on other markets.
Compaq will likely use the Alpha architecture to separate itself from Intel, as it has done with the purchase of processors from Advanced Micro Devices, said Mark Ostrau, partner with Fenwick & West, Palo Alto, Calif., who specializes in cases involving anticompetitive practices.
"Compaq has been making a number of moves to avoid being completely beholden to Intel," Ostrau said. "That should be viewed favorably by the FTC. Digital, on its own, was not really succeeding with Alpha. You could make the argument that with the Compaq deal, at least Alpha's still alive, as a competitor to Intel."
Other analysts agreed that Compaq would likely use the Alpha chip to differentiate itself from its competition, just as Hewlett-Packard and IBM have done with their PA-RISC and Power chip architectures.
"The Alpha architecture may have more opportunities in giving Compaq experience in high-end systems," said Nathan Brookwood, microprocessor analyst with Dataquest, in San Jose Calif. Tandem Computers, a server manufacturer Compaq recently acquired for $4 billion, would likely consider moving its MIPS-based servers to the Alpha architecture, he said.
Tim |
