Intel on the move to strike back ?

[Maggi]

http://www.aceshardware.com/#N50000292

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">The rumor has now become fact: Intel has agreed to acquire the Alpha micrprocessor unit and technology from Compaq. Compaq in turn will migrate towards IA-64 as its sole 64-bit server architecture by 2004. Employees of the Alpha unit will be offered jobs at Intel, while a few will stay at Compaq to finish the current EV7 project. As for the multithreaded EV8, it seems this chip will never make it to the market. Compaq's unified 64-bit front also means that their Tandem products will not migrate to Alpha from MIPS as previously planned, but will instead migrate to IA-64. The company will also begin work on porting the Tru64 UNIX operating system (among others) to IA-64.

...</font>

mixed feelings over here ... what do you think ?

Cheers,
Maggi

[Wombat]

Why would they buy Compaq? That leaves Sun and IBM as the only competitors for server processors (AMD hasn't made big guns yet, and Intel and HP are in a partnership). Kind of hedging on monopoly.

[Thundrchez]

Not too surprising, but a bit sad. If you can't beat them, buy them.

I predominately use Sun workstations at work/home. I think that Sun and IBM are going to continue to do well in the real 64 bit server market.

[Joel]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Intel has agreed to acquire the Alpha microprocessor unit and technology from Compaq.</font>

I guess they couldn't figure out how to build their on 64-bit processor. Looks like Intel is up to their old tricks.

I sometimes wonder if Intel and Microsoft are not both owned by Bill Gates. I mean both of them have the same business model. If you can't build a better product to beat your competitors then buy out the rest of the market to eliminate the competition.

Joel

[Rags]

Kind of like AMD when they purchased their technology to get the K6 and K7 out, eh?

Rags

[Indiana]

Joel, I was thinking exactly the same. Microsoftian bussiness rulez....

But then IMHO Intel would do the only right thing from a sole bussiness/market point-of-view if they'd acquire the Alpha CPU. Buying out a competitor that has an outstanding product but still a low market-share is only good for your company if you're big enough to really push the product. (Ouch, I hope NVidia didn't hear this, otherwise I see no hope for ImgTech....)

[Wombat]

Except that Intel has their own 64-bit processor. Itanium was released a few weeks ago.

[Novdid]

I have a strong feeling that rags has a somewhat hostile feelings against AMD.

Based on a few replies he's posted lately.

[Greebe]

No he doesn't have hostile feeling toward AMD, just getting the facts straight.

[Rags]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Wombat:
Except that Intel has their own 64-bit processor. Itanium was released a few weeks ago.</font>

And AMD had their own 586 processor to compete with the Pentium when they got the tech to do the K6, and they had a totally different processor in the works before they decided to scrap it, go with the K6 and concentrate on the K7.

Rags

[Rags]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Novdid:
I have a strong feeling that rags has a somewhat hostile feelings against AMD.

Based on a few replies he's posted lately.</font>

You don't know me very well, do you? I like AMD, most all of my systems were AMD. Like Mike said, I was just getting the facts straight. If AMD was in the financial position to buy Alpha, they would have done the same.

Rags

[Joel]

Guess I didn't put enough smilies in my post.

It's not the processor that AMD is worried about because they have their own but the acquisition of:

"Compaq Visual Fortran will become in Intel-branded product in 2002 and will, in fact, replace Intel Fortran on Windows next year.

This leads to what may be one of the biggest potential fallout victims of the Compaq/Intel deal, not Alpha, which has lagged commercially for years, or Sun, which has a strong leadership in the 64-bit enterprise market, but AMD and in particular, the company's future prospects in the server market.

With CVF becoming an Intel branded product replacing Intel Fortran, it seems highly unlikely the compiler will continue to be actively optimized for AMD microprocessors and furthermore, the x86-64 architecture. If Compaq is out of the picture, then the question becomes, "Who will support x86-64 in their compilers?" Obviously, GCC will support x86-64, but it's unlikely we'll see this on the Windows platform, and it still leaves Fortran an open question."

Joel

[Thundrchez]

Yup, AMD royally flopped with their K5. They resorted to buying NexGen to bury the K5 and have a decent K6. AMD went after the K5 design team with an axe, and my company hired a group of good designers from them.

[Technoid]

I can see it:

The AMD VD at that time chasing a couple of ingeneers with The Mask's AXE;

No wonder those who was left produced the K7!

[DentyCracker]

AMD K5

ROFL

You can't install DX8 on one of those things you know. DX7 yes, DX8 no go.

I put in an upper case 7 (&) initially.

[This message has been edited by DentyCracker (edited 28 June 2001).]