1.22.2007

Another Rat Jumps the AMD Ship

Can’t say we all saw this coming. It must be that AMD based SUN servers was losing market share so bad that SUN had to eat crow, swallow its pride and get in bed with its arch-rival, Intel. One could still remember the Itanium and Xeon bashing from a year ago. Again this isn’t just another design win for Intel, this is a complete admission of defeat for SUN.
From Reuters:

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. will announce on Monday plans to use microprocessors from No. 1 chip maker Intel Corp., according to a source familiar with the situation, in what would be a
blow to Intel's smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Under the agreement, Sun Microsystems will buy Intel's Xeon chips to power its servers, in addition to AMD's Opteron chips that Sun uses, the source said.
Sun has scheduled a news conference for Monday morning at a San Francisco hotel but declined to give further details.

An Intel spokesman declined to comment. Sun has used the Opteron chips over the past two to three years exclusively in its servers, because of what has been AMD's power and performance advantages over Intel until recently, analysts said. Servers are the workhorses of computer and carry far higher profit margins than do personal computers.
… "Intel has come back and has a very credible roadmap and product line and customers are asking for it," Brookwood said.

Now with SUN relying on Intel’s market reach to push for SUN/SOLARIS, I doubt SUN will be making any more Opteron based servers. One would be naïve to think that there is no under the table agreement with Intel to drive customer conversion from AMD to Intel based servers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

who cares about SUN's dwindling server market share. This is now insignificant to AMD's increasing volume.
I still expect Intel to be BK in Q2'11

Anonymous said...

'Roborat, Ph. D. said...
I think the "10" stands for how many times he revised his prediction.'
Ok, but I was searching and the number that should be staying now should be 12 or 13, not again Q2'11.
If he is predicting somebodys BK 5 years in advance, I told you, he is a sick bastard and need to go to cure himself.
Who is thinking to read his blog for the next 5 years, if we all know that is utterly devoted to a single fannish subject and single point of view within that subject, to the point of an obsession. He remains loyal to his particular obsession, disregarding any factors that differ from his point of view. He is typically hateful to the opposing brand or competition of his obsession regardless of its merits or achievements.

Come on...

Sorry about the bad english.