Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scumbria who wrote (61679)	6/13/1999 7:34:00 PM
From: kapkan4u	Respond to of 1572797

From zdnet.com Intel chip slip delays 8-way servers Ho-hum. Yet another delay with Intel's 'Profusion' chip set postpones products. By Carmen Nobel, PC Week June 11, 1999 1:51 PM PT Another delay in an Intel Corp. chip set will push the release of new eight-processor servers into the fall. Several vendors will demonstrate eight-way servers at PC Expo in New York later this month, but they won't be shipping them in July, as originally planned. That's not an issue for many potential customers, who say the servers won't meet their full potential until Microsoft Corp. ships Windows 2000, which is due in October. Intel officials this week acknowledged that the company's Profusion chip set has been delayed again. The length of the delay is unknown until results of "validation tests" come back, they said. But sources at several computer manufacturers believe it will likely be at least September before Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) gives them the go-ahead to ship servers incorporating eight Pentium III Xeon processors. The Profusion technology was developed by Corollary Inc., which Intel bought in 1997. The chip set was originally due last year but has been beset by delays. Corporate IT not alarmed Another three-month delay for new hardware can be a headache, but in this case, corporate IT customers aren't exactly champing at the bit for eight-way servers. "The price/performance of the additional processors is not very attractive," said Lorin Olsen, an IT manager at Sprint Corp., in Kansas City, Mo. "For most of our applications, we can add servers rather than processors. For those tasks that must rely on a single system image, we have usually chosen RISC-based Unix platforms." In addition, screaming-fast hardware won't do much good if existing software can't keep up with it. Server applications such as Microsoft's Exchange don't scale well on an eight-processor machine, said Lester Morgan, IT manager for the National Football League, in New York. Morgan also pointed out that even if eight-way servers were shipping this month, they still wouldn't make the cut for many companies in the midst of a year-2000 technology lock-down. "[Profusion] is a day late and a dollar short on our capital expenditures," Morgan said. "We spent a considerable amount of money performing hardware tests pursuant to our Y2K efforts and bought $450,000 worth of mail servers in the past year." Waiting for Windows 2000 One Compaq Computer Corp. customer who plans to buy an eight-way server isn't bothered by the delay since he expects to wait until next year before he sees software that will scale for it. "We're not going to be able to take advantage of [eight-way servers] until Windows 2000 comes out," said Robert Dykman, vice president of IT at Barnesandnoble.com, in New York. The company has been beta-testing an eight-way server since last month, primarily to see if it speeds up its Web search engine. Meanwhile, eight-way servers continue to show up on the beta scene at trade shows. New servers expected at PC Expo include IBM's Netfinity 8500, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s LXR 8500, and Compaq's ProLiant 8000 and 8500. Dell Computer Corp. will demonstrate its as-yet-unnamed PowerEdge eight-way off the show floor. In addition to the server, Dell is working with Microsoft on clustering software, for as many as four nodes, that goes beyond fail-over and has some load balancing capabilities, said sources close to the Round Rock, Texas, company.