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To: PCSS who wrote (2538)	2/11/2003 12:12:07 AM
From: The Duke of URL©	Respond to of 4345

Message 18561605

To: PCSS who wrote (2538)	2/11/2003 10:17:26 AM
From: The Duke of URL©	Respond to of 4345

nwfusion.com Networkworldfusion IBM cools on Linux support for Itanium By Ashlee Vance IDG News Service, 02/10/03 IBM has pulled back on its work tuning the Linux operating system for Intel's Itanium processor, in a move that possibly points to a larger shift away from the fledgling processor, according to an analyst. IBM has transferred a handful of developers who had worked to make Linux perform well on Itanium to the task of tying the OS to its own Power processor, said Ron Favali, a spokesman for IBM. This transition away from Itanium came as a result of slow market adoption of the chip thus far, according to Favali, and could signal a growing feud between IBM and Intel. Advertisement: "IBM doesn't have anyone dedicated to working with Linux on Itanium," Favali said. "Our view right now is that Itanium is like a science project. There's not a market for it." IBM has been lukewarm in its support of Itanium to this point, saying it will release an Itanium 2-based server but taking its time to do so. A similar stance on Itanium has been taken by Dell, which is also yet to ship an Itanium 2-based server. Itanium 2 chips have been available since July 2002. Rival HP has taken the opposite approach with its commitment to build Itanium servers in the coming years instead of its PA-RISC and Alpha-based systems. HP picked Itanium over its own chips in part because it believed the industry at large would adopt the processor. Such hopes, however, have not been borne out. "IBM is getting less and less shy about making clear that its Power chip is the company's 64-bit play, especially for Linux," said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata. "IBM would rather use their processor because they can do more with it, and get more money coming out of the system because they own more of it." IBM has had a number of Itanium customer wins in tandem with SuSE Linux, but the company maintains that the brighter part of its future with Intel involves building 32-bit servers with the Xeon processor. "We'll make Itanium systems available if a customer wants it, but our customers aren't really clamoring for Itanium," Favali said. "We do think Xeon has a lot of life left in it." Dell also is focusing more of its attention on the Xeon processors and is doing a modicum of work to tune Linux for Itanium. One of the company's engineers touted himself as "Dell's only (Itanium) Linux engineer" in his online resume, though he changed this to say "lead (Itanium) engineer" after the company was contacted by IDG News Service. A company spokeswoman said Dell would not comment on the size of its development teams. By contrast, HP and Intel said they are dedicating a large amount of resources to making sure Linux runs well on Itanium, as it will be one of the key operating systems for the chip. Linux's similarity to Unix can make it a manageable task to port software from a Power or Sun UltraSPARC-based system to one based on Itanium 2, according to HP and Intel. An Intel spokeswoman said the company "respectfully disagrees with IBM" as Itanium demand has exceeded its expectations in some vertical markets. The company also has a "massive amount of resources" dedicated to tuning software and operating systems for its various chips. Likewise, HP said it has been working with the Linux community for years and is trying to help boost the operating system's ability to work on large, multiprocessor servers as a way to increase its Itanium server performance, according to Judy Chavis, worldwide Linux director at HP. "We were ahead of IBM for years before they realized Linux was important, and their comments are just another facet of this," she said. "I think IBM now realizes they have some serious competition on their hands with Itanium." Illuminata's Haff agreed that the Itanium chip has proved to be a formidable competitor to Power and Sun's UltraSPARC processors but added that he senses the industry cooling on Itanium overall. "I think the industry is starting to shift a bit around Itanium," Haff said. "Two years ago people looked at Itanium and thought it would be the natural order of things to have Intel as the 64-bit chip supplier. The fact is that Itanium is still basically an HPCC (high-performance computing clusters) play, so IBM is looking to go their own route if they can get just as much market share with Power."

To: PCSS who wrote (2538)	2/12/2003 2:01:47 AM
From: The Duke of URL©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4345

Well, color me prescient, but ya know I feel a disturbance in the Force, inflectionpointwize. You heard it hear first folks, but this Dell Dude Dope Deal has more legs than you might first think. Just about the only expense Dell has is advertising, it is the only thing they do BEFORE a computer is ordered. I think imagewize as we say in the adbiz this is going to hurt Dell bigtime. HPQ is already Dell dope analogies in thier sales pitch. The jokes have just started. bubblevision.tv Couple that with Cisco suing that Chinese co. that I believe supplied dell with switches, coupled with Linksys out Delling Dell on the low end. And now this IBM thingy. 26 Billion dollars worth of business out the window. No IBM parts, no IBM service support. That of course is not the real story to that deal, but I think the real story is worse, if it ever surfaces. But I digress..... There will, however, be forevermore, be a new meaning to the term, ......DELLHEAD. If ya catch my drift. :)))))) Darth Duke.

To: PCSS who wrote (2538)	2/12/2003 1:50:36 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Respond to of 4345

Now THIS is a big deal: I do not know whether this will help or hurt hpq. It certainly is beneficial to the network storage market as a whole, and of course to Western Digital. from cnet news Storage networking standard wins approval By Ian Fried Staff Writer, CNET News.com February 12, 2003, 10:32 AM PT A key standards body has given its blessing for a new technology that allows storage area networks to be built using existing Ethernet networking. Late Tuesday, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) approved the iSCSI standard. SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is a widely used standard for connecting hard drives to computers; iSCSI lets that happen over a network connection such as a company Ethernet network or even the Internet. iSCSI holds the promise of letting multiple computers tap into a pool of storage systems. The major competitor for iSCSI is the existing Fibre Channel protocol, which offers high performance and is well-established in the marketplace, but requires separate networks. By contrast, a key benefit of iSCSI is that it works with existing computer networks. While not widely used today, iSCSI holds the potential to be less expensive and less difficult to use. Companies have already built iSCSI products based on a draft proposal, but the formal ratification paves the way for greater adoption by storage companies and customers. "Ratification of the standard means that end users can move forward with solutions with more confidence," said Bryce Macklin, marketing chair of the IP Storage Forum of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and a product line manager for Adaptec. The SNIA subgroup finished its final comments on the standard in September. Although some minor changes have been made, none of the modifications should affect compatibility for products that have been built on the draft standard, Macklin said. IBM and Cisco Systems are among the early backers of iSCSI, but Macklin said he expects a large number of companies to come out with products this year, now that the standard has won final approval. Cisco, for example, has been shipping gear that works with both technologies. While Fibre Channel is likely to remain the standard for large companies, Macklin said many small and midsized businesses have been reluctant to move to storage area networks because of the costs of setting up and maintaining a separate network. Products using iSCSI should allow those companies to move away from direct-attached storage without the burdens of a separate network infrastructure. "I see the two technologies being complementary," Macklin said of iSCSI and Fibre Channel. News.com's Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.