RE: <<In case you have not been following events, CPQ is about to buy DEC, which sells a few 'real enterprise servers'>>
Funny you mention that purchase, my favorite project at work dealt specifically with it.
You are correct in that Alpha is the other NT-native alternative to Intel's chips, and that Alpha would seem to benefit from Merced's delay, and that since Compaq is buying DEC, that means Compaq has all bases covered. And I know that a lot of people hold that view.
I guess I'm one of the few who just doesn't see Compaq building a major line of servers using Alpha. The Alpha 21164 was a great chip and the 21264 will be marvelous, and yeah they're faster than greased lightning, but Alphas were never produced in large enough numbers to be more than a nuisance to Intel. I was actually shocked by how small-time the Alpha manufacturing operation was. I have the correct stats at work, but off the top of my head, I believe Alpha had less than 3% of the NT market. I think Compaq, DEC, and Microsoft see the Alpha-Open VMS-Digital Unix world as a good source for technology, especially helping them make 64 bits work. I don't think they see Alpha is a serious alternative to Intel or the other superchips.
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