Because Compaq's Alpha-based server business is in a distant fourth place compared with the Unix server lines from No. 1 Sun, No. 2 Hewlett-Packard and No. 3 IBM, Compaq's decision to rework its high-end server products is probably more important for Intel and Sun than for Compaq itself.
Among the effects:
- Intel's Itanium efforts could benefit from new, experienced employees--but Sun and IBM also have an opportunity to snare Alpha designers.
- The underpinnings of Alpha, UltraSparc and Power--a technology called reduced instruction set computing (RISC)--has just received a vote of no confidence, boosting the prospects of Itanium's very long instruction word (VLIW) design and putting more pressure on Sun.
- Compaq's server-design employees will be able to unify products behind a single chip.
"This makes an interesting dynamic, particularly for IBM and Sun being left as the only major RISC suppliers in the market," Gartner analyst George Weiss said Monday. "It raises more issues about whether RISC is in it for the long haul."
Although IBM has hedged its bets by firmly backing both Power- and Itanium-based servers, Sun has derided Itanium as a "weird architecture" and insists its own UltraSparc design still has a glorious future before it.
"All these architectures are converging gradually," said Shahin Khan, head of marketing for Sun's server products. In addition, Khan said, Sun will be able to improve its chips without requiring software companies to completely rewrite their software.
On the other hand, Sun's competitors will be able to focus solely on designing servers, while Sun also must worry about designing the chips.
"You wonder how long Sun will be able to do that before business or economics force their hand," Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood said.
Boosting Itanium
RISC, which dates back to the 1980s, may have longevity problems. But Itanium, which was launched in May, hasn't even begun struggling through adolescence. The first generation of Itanium was delayed by years, and even Intel said the second-generation "McKinley" version will be the first with potential for use beyond just test servers.
The deal with Compaq has the potential to improve that track record, though, because Compaq not only has expertise in chip design, but also in the creation of "compiler" software, which plays an increasingly important role in creating programs that take advantage of chip features.
Under the deal announced Monday, Intel will incorporate Compaq technology to give an "essence of Alpha" to future Itanium designs, said Paul Otellini, general manager of the Intel Architecture Group.
But some believe Intel won't get all it hopes out of the Compaq design staff.
"Frankly, I don't think they're going to get much," said Linley Group analyst Linley Gwennap. "Most of the good Alpha engineers have already left. If they haven't already, most aren't going to be interested in working with Intel." The only other time Intel acquired a design team originally, from Digital Equipment--the 25-person StrongARM group under Rich Whitek--"the whole team walked out," Gwennap said.
Regardless of design issues, Itanium likely will prevail on its business merits, Gwennap said, because so many server makers back the chip design. "At this point there's so much momentum behind the Itanium platform that it's hard to see how anybody's going to stand up against that," he said.
One feature that could be useful for Itanium is "symmetric multi-threading," a process Compaq said would debut in the Alpha EV8 design. Symmetric multi-threading increases the efficiency of a chip by letting it work on more tasks in parallel. Another is better features on the chip for creating multiprocessor servers, said MicroDesign Resources analyst Cary Snyder.
But symmetric multi-threading, like the VLIW design in Itanium, isn't much good without support from compiler software, Snyder said.
Indeed, Intel is eager to put the Alpha compiler programmers to work. "We're hoping to get the compiler team (together) as quickly as possible," Otellini said. "They'll work on the overall (Itanium) compiler technology" and on bringing Compaq's operating Tru64, OpenVMS and NonStop Himalaya operating systems to Itanium.
Sun also is interested in attracting some Alpha designers.
"This strengthens what has already been a recruitment opportunity," said Khan, adding that Sun has chip design centres near Boston and Austin, Texas, where Compaq Alpha and IBM Power chips are designed, respectively.
"We can bet that (Sun Chief Operating Officer Ed) Zander (and IBM COO) Sam Palmisano are going to vie for these engineers," Giga Information Group analyst Brad Day said. Compaq's experienced chip designers will be "naming their price."
Cultural issues could be an obstacle preventing Intel from picking up all the Alpha designers, Snyder added. "What kind of toll the religious war will take remains to be seen. Now is a good time to motivate people with some really good low-cost stock options," he said.
