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.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (128213)	2/23/2001 7:20:14 PM
From: Dan3	Respond to of 186894

Re: Well duh, it's no different from replacing existing servers with newer ones It's really a lot harder to migrate to a different software base. A lot harder. If one of your servers is a dual processor PIII Xeon and the other is a PII, then all aspects of administration and configuration, particularly security and bug fix packs will be identical. If the two servers must use different binaries, and different OS versions, everything has to be tested and maintained as two different efforts. If you are maintaining dozens or hundreds of servers, especially if they are geographically dispersed, it's a lot easier if they can all run the same software. Intel has come a long way in terms of catching up to Alpha's performance level, but for years it lagged far behind. Yet Alpha sales haven't been nearly as good as those of Intel X86 servers. Compatibility with the existing software base is the number one issue for hardware. If there were no alternative, it would be one thing, but Itanium/Mckinley/P4/Foster will be considered against Palamino/Sledgehammer. If Compaq offers up a choice between Itanium/Mckinley that requires all new software, P4/Foster that performs poorly without all new software, and Palamino/Sledgehammer that runs fine with the existing, proven, paid for, trained for, software that you're already using, it's going to be a real easy decision to make. Dan