AR,>>>Rumor: Microsoft, Intel fall out over Merced "...likely to lead to a delay..." <<<
FYI: This is not a rumor >>>according to Joseph Reger, marketing director of enterprise computing at Siemens. He made the comments at a Siemens press event in Berlin. "The same thing that happened in the PC market will happen in the server market," Reger said. "Intel will begin to dominate. We have bet the future of our business on Intel." <<<
infoworld.com
Siemens to shift servers to Intel's Merced
By Mary Lisbeth D'Amico
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 2:03 PM PT, Feb 9, 1999
Siemens plans to gradually move its entire lineup of servers to a platform based on the new generation of IA-64 microprocessors from Intel.
This will mean a big change, especially for the segment of Intel-based servers currently based on RISC processors, according to Joseph Reger, marketing director of enterprise computing at Siemens. He made the comments at a Siemens press event in Berlin.
"The same thing that happened in the PC market will happen in the server market," Reger said. "Intel will begin to dominate. We have bet the future of our business on Intel."
Siemens currently has servers in three segments: BS2000/OSD mainframe servers; Intel-based servers which run on Siemens' own version of Unix, called Reliant; and Primergy servers, based on Microsoft's Windows NT operating system.
The company is committed to maintaining all three lines, Reger said, but will gradually migrate all of them over to the new Merced microprocessors, the first of Intel's new IA-64 microprocessors. The market will, over the next few years will be split into segments based on three operating systems, he said: one-third will be NT-based servers, another one-third Unix-based servers, and the remainder other operating systems.
Siemens will maintain its RISC-based servers through 2008, Reger said, and will still continue through 2002 to make improvements to its existing line, the RM-Unix servers. A new RM-Unix server software package announced today, the Reliant Cluster Server II, is designed to link Siemens RM servers into high-performance clusters. A new model in the RM line announced today, the RM-600, is the server designed to be used in the cluster, and shows a 50 percent performance increase over previous models, according to the company.
Reger stressed that the mainframe business at Siemens is very profitable, and that, contrary to some rumors, Siemens has no plans to give up on that business. The company is the second-ranked player in the mainframe business in Europe.
But in other areas, Siemens still has the problem that it is very focused on the German market, Reger said. In its PC business as well as in its Primergy and Unix-based server segments, it is the top player in the German market. But, for example, across Europe it only ranks fourth with its Unix servers.
When asked where the alternative operating system Linux fits into Siemens' strategy, Reger said he did not see it as playing a big part in the enterprise server market. He did envision, however, that Siemens will look at it for applications which require a simplified or stripped-down operating system, such as home networking, or for a database based on an operating system, similar to that of the "raw iron" concept recently proposed by Oracle.
Siemens also took the opportunity Tuesday to announce new servers which it will be showing at the CeBIT '99 trade show in Hanover, Germany in March.
The company announced a new high performance top-end mainframe, the BS2000/OSD Business Server S160, which features a CMOS 390 processor. Siemens also is porting SAP AG's R/3 software to its BS2000/OSD mainframe server.
It also announced ready-to-run R/3 pre-installed on its Primergy server, with SQL Server from Microsoft. It comes in standard version, as well as a more expensive version called R/3 Factory.
Siemens also introduced the Primergy 670-20, a server with a hot pluggable PCI controllers that run under Windows NT 4.0, which can be replaced online.
Prices are not yet available, and more information will be available at CeBIT. Siemens AG, in Berlin, can be reached at www.siemens.de.
Mary Lisbeth D |
