James Nicoll said
"..SUNW needs to learn how to embrace the PC in some way
to become long in my mind; through x86 or maybe they can hang on until merced ?"
Hmm..looks like the inventors of Merced are passing on it as well...
HP Cools To Merced Servers
By Martin Allen and John Dunn
Network Week
04/21/99, 3:05 p.m. ET
techweb.com
Hewlett-Packard, co-developer of Intel's IA-64 architecture, has hinted
the company may not use the Merced chip in its first IA-64 ready server,
the N-4000.
The Palo Alto, Calif., company suggested it might wait instead for
Intel's McKinley chip, alater increment of the IA-64, and continue using
its own PA-RISC design in the interim.
"The original idea was to target on Merced. Now they [the Unix division]
are looking at whether McKinley would make better sense. It would offer
better price/performance," said Hugh Jenkins, HP's enterprise product
marketing manager.
The move could be embarrassing for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel,
which wants to position the IA-64 for the higher-end Unix server market
at the earliest opportunity after its expected launch next year. Merced
would make its first appearance in lower-specification PC and Unix
servers as scheduled.
HP is using PA-8500 processors in the new N-class and indicated two more
versions of RISC could be developed before the performance benefits from
IA-64 became apparent.
The company provided only sketchy details of these chips, the PA-8800
and PA-8900, though the latter was expected to run at clock speeds
approaching 1 GHz.
If Merced cannot show a significant performance benefit, then the
success of the chip could be called into question. Jane Doorly, vice
president and director of research at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner
Group, speculated the chip could become a proof of concept product for
IA-64.
"It depends what they mean by using Merced," she said. "They might use
it as proof of concept, showing it can be used in anger."
According to Intel, Merced was still on track for release. "Test devices
will be released in the middle of this year with the final version at
the same time next year," said Graham Palmer, an Intel spokesman.
"We have good commitment from the OS vendors," he said, though he
refused to be drawn on Hewlett-Packard's apparent coolness toward
Merced.
Gordon Graylish, Intel's director of marketing for EMEA, said vendors
would be looking to the long term. "IA-64 is the architecture for the
next 10 to 15 years. Where do you want to put your money?" |
