by Playfuls Staff |
22nd January 2007
A source cited by Associated Press declared that Intel and Sun Microsystems are about to announce a breakthrough agreement, according to which Sun will use Intel chips on its servers and Intel will support Sun’s Solaris OS.[more]
A year and a half passed since Apple’s founder Steve Jobs unveiled the collaboration with Intel, and now the Santa Clara chip behemoth strikes another revolutionary deal. AP reports that, quoting an undisclosed source, Sun is about to buy Intel processors for its servers, in return for Intel’s endorsement on Solaris, Sun’s super advanced OS.
The agreement is quite odd, considering that Sun Microsystems also provides servers based on AMD’s powerful Opteron chips and that Sun’s SPARC processors are also included in the company’s servers. But it’s probably Intel’s wish to regain ground in front of its Sunnyvale, Calif.-based rival, after declining profits, plummeting shares and a worldwide restructuring.
Actually, Sun is also interested in the partnership, since the expensive acquisitions it has made in the recent years (Kealia in 2002, a startup founded by original Sun founder Andy Bechtolsheim, or Storagetek- for US$4.1 billion in cash, a deal completed in August 2006) have seriously affected the company’s profitability. The new deal could definitely make Sun’s servers attractive, while in the same time reducing costs for SPARC production and implementation.
Back in 2003 (the moment when Opteron was introduced in Sun’s server line) Intel was already providing chips for its Santa Clara neighbor, but following energy-consumption problems it was dismissed as partner. Now with the introduction of 65nm chips, Intel not only solved heat dissipation and energy consumption problems, but also made an important “leap ahead” in front of AMD, which hasn’t yet started mass production for 65nm chips. According to the cited source though, Sun will continue to provide servers powered by Opteron, while at the same time selling servers powered by Intel’s Xeon.
Sun’s cooperation with Intel goes back to 1981, when Sun marketed an Intel 80386-based machine, the Sun386i; this was designed to be a hybrid system, running SunOS but at the same time supporting DOS applications. This only remained on the market for a brief period of time. A follow-up "486i" upgrade was announced but only a few prototype units were ever manufactured. Under the not-yet-officially-confirmed deal, Intel will again provide chips for Sun's x86 line, but with Xeons inside. The Xeon is Intel's brand name for its server-class x86 microprocessors intended for multiple-processor machines.
On 26 June 2006, Intel released the Dual-Core Xeon codenamed Woodcrest; it was the first Intel Core microarchitecture processor to be launched on the market. It is a server and workstation version of the Intel Core 2 processor. Intel claims that it provides an 80% boost in performance, while reducing power consumption by 20% relative to the Pentium D.
It has a 1333 MT/s FSB in most models, except for the 5110 and 5120, which have a 1066 MT/s FSB, with the fastest processor clocking in at 3.0 GHz. All Woodcrests use LGA 771 and all but the 5160 and 5148LV have a TDP of 65 W, which is much less than the previous generation of 130 W. The 5160 has a TDP of 80 W, still much less than 130 W, and the 5148LV, which will be available in Q3 2006, has a TDP of 40 W. All models support EM64T, the XD bit, and Virtualization Technology, with Demand-Based Switching only on Dual-Core Xeon 5140 or above.
Intel's endorsement of the company's Solaris operating system is also an important victory for Sun, as many servers that use chips based on the x86 design often run on Linux or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.
Rumors of a Sun-Intel partnership had circulated since Friday, when Banc of America Securities analyst Sumit Dhanda wrote in a research note that Sun was considering using Intel's Xeon processors for its fast-growing x86-based server product lines.
Though Sun is a "fairly small player" in the market for x86-based servers, coming in sixth in terms of market share, Dhanda said, the company's sales in that market are growing rapidly.
Dhanda said such a partnership could allow Intel to gain as much as 50 percent of Sun's x86 business, which could translate into $25 million to $50 million in lost revenues for AMD.
"(W)hile the impact to Intel financials is not meaningful in the near-term, we think the shift away from AMD bodes well for momentum in Intel's server business over the course of the upcoming quarters," Dhanda said in the note.
