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To: Tony Viola who wrote (83234)	6/10/1999 7:42:00 PM
From: the Druid	Respond to of 186894

A question for everyone: Does the S&P Industrial Index contain NASDAQ large caps like INTC? Thank you. I need the answer quick.

To: Tony Viola who wrote (83234)	6/10/1999 8:17:00 PM
From: semi_infinite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

"All out attack on the high end" IBM flexes high-end server muscles By Stephen Shankland Staff Writer, CNET News.com June 10, 1999, 3:55 p.m. PT IBM will debut its eight-processor server later this month along with a host of other technologies designed to bring its Netfinity line of Intel servers closer to higher-end Unix servers. The eight-processor machines offer a theoretical doubling of the horsepower currently available in mainstream Intel-based computers. And coupled with a new version of Microsoft Windows, the eight-way servers mark a new stage in the continuing effort to bring the mass-market methods of Intel to the level of computing sturdiness and strength offered in brawny Unix machines. IBM will show its Netfinity 8500R with eight Xeon processors at the PC Expo conference in New York on June 21, said Jim Gargin, director of product marketing for the Netfinity line. The server itself will be for sale in the third quarter for prices starting in the low $20,000 range, he said. However, some analysts say Microsoft's Windows NT operating system isn't comparably powerful. That could change with the arrival of Windows 2000, the first versions of which Microsoft plans to release in the closing months of 1999--the same time eight-processor Intel machines are likely to enter volume manufacturing. "[Windows] NT 4 is floundering. It's not gaining market share, it's not losing market share," said Dataquest analyst Kimball Brown. "Windows 2000 is going to help it a lot. We expect an explosion of new applications next year." Still, Windows 2000 likely will raise the operating system from its current state of a "reasonably good low-end server environment" only to a "midrange" one, Brown said The eight-processor machines are going to appeal as a way to simplify the swarms of NT servers that have propagated across large companies, said Brian Sanders, Netfinity software marketing manager. IBM also believes they'll be a popular way to house Oracle and IBM database software. More high-end technology At PC Expo, IBM also will announce other high-end features for the servers, including the "Cornhusker" clustering that allows as many as eight Windows NT servers to be share loads and back each other up, Gargin said. In addition, IBM will announce the high-speed SP switch for Netfinity machines, a technology snatched from IBM's RS/6000 Unix server division. The switch is part of IBM's "X Architecture" plan to try to beef up Netfinity servers with IBM technology from higher-end server and mainframe computers. "We're launching an all-out attack on the high end," Gargin said. IBM's eight-way system is based on the Profusion chipset developed by Corollary, a company Intel acquired. Part of the Profusion package is the communications chips, developed by Compaq Computer. Hitachi Data Systems licensed the Profusion technology before Intel bought Corollary, and Hitachi is making its own Profusion chips. Its eight-processor servers already are shipping. Linux computer maker VA Linux Systems sells an eight-processor system based on the Hitachi design, Hitachi has said. VA is working on tinkering with Linux to make sure the Unix-like operating system will work on Profusion machines. The SP switch, which can transfer data at the rate of 2.4 gigabytes per second, is the foundation for IBM's RS/6000 supercomputers such as Blue Pacific at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. A high transfer rate is necessary to keep all the different computing nodes in such a system fed with data. The SP switch initially will be able to support clusters of as many as 14 Netfinity machines, Gargin said, though Cornhusker still supports only eight nodes with Windows NT. For tying together more Intel servers, IBM is using Linux and other Unix operating systems, Sanders said. "We see the sweet spot as being between 16 and 32 nodes," a capability IBM expects to have in place during the first half of 2000, Gargin said. IBM also will debut a new 3HB card that improves the capabilities of disk arrays and a chain of Fibre Channel products to allow companies to set up storage area networks, Gargin said.