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Compaq Sees Decades of Life in
Digital's Alpha Chip
Compaq sees decade of life in Digital's
Alpha chip
05:50 a.m. Oct 02, 1998 Eastern
FRANKFURT, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Compaq Computer
Corp said on Friday that it planned to continue using
Digital Equipment Corp's high-powered Alpha
processor for another 10 years even as Intel Corp nears
the release of its competing Merced chip.
''There has been a total commitment by Compaq to
maintain and enchance these (Alpha) capabilities,''
Enrico Pesatori, Compaq's senior vice president of
marketing, told Reuters in an interview.
''Our assessment is that Alpha will continue to have a
price/performance advantage over Merced probably for
the next decade. We are going to continue (offering
Alpha systems), probably beyond 2010,'' he said.
Compaq still planned to use the Merced chip, which is
under development and is expected to be available in
2000.
''We will absolutely jump on it,'' Pesatori said. ''But
Merced is not even a prototype today. It is two years
away.''
The Merced processor is a critical piece in Intel's
strategy to offer high-powered processors that carry
much fatter profit margins than the chips it makes for
desktop and portable PCs.
Intel's growth and profit have stagnated in the past 12
months as competiting chip makers have caught up with
the performance of its Pentium II PC chips and forced it
to lower prices.
Compaq, which acquired Digital earlier this year, is the
largest provider of Pentium-based servers. But it
recently decided to use Alpha in its Tandem division,
which makes mainframes used to run stock markets and
other transaction-intensive applications.
''Alpha will be used by Tandem and these are machines
with a life of 10 years or more,'' Pesatori said. ''We will
have to enhance these products.''
Through a complicated turn of events, Intel manufactures
Alpha chips for Compaq, although Compaq handles
design and development of new versions of the chip.
In 1997, Intel agreed to take over Alpha production to
settle a suit in which Digital accused the chip maker of
patent infringement.
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