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To: Paul Engel who wrote (57406)	6/7/1998 6:51:00 AM
From: Mark Brophy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Re: Technology gestation periods How much headway has the ALPHA chip made since it debuted in 1992? About as much as Microsoft made between the release of Windows 1.0 in 1985 and release 3.0 in 1991. Or, about as much as Intel made between the release of the 8080 in 1973 and the 80386 many years later (1986?). Intel considered itself a memory company when you worked for them and it took two decades to realize the microprocessor was the crown jewel. When your technology requires third party support, the gestation period is very long. Grove has already acknowledged that fact with his projection that Merced won't be significant until 2004. Alpha already has 5-10% of the WinNT market and higher percentage of the CPU-intensive computer graphics world. Intel probably delayed Merced because many more apps are I/O bound (web servers, etc.) than CPU-bound (CAD and graphics).

To: Paul Engel who wrote (57406)	6/7/1998 11:25:00 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul - If you consider the total unit volume that DEC owned in the marketplace, their percentage of Alpha parts was pretty high - they just didn't have the market clout to drive volume. Not so with Compaq. If Compaq decides to make Alpha a strategic investment, as they are showing signs of doing, they could generate enough volume on their own to make the Alpha viable. IMHO Intel should be working with Compaq to assure that they are Compaq's best Alpha partner and develop a coherent Alpha / Merced 64 bit strategy. Otherwise Compaq may end up creating a market for Alpha with suppliers like Samsung and IBM providing the chips. Would Intel let potential chip competitors develop this opportunity? Does not seem like the Intel style to just hope the competition will not execute.