IBM to Expand AMD Chip Use As Intel Steps Up Counterattack By DON CLARK Wall Street Journal
August 1, 2006; Page B4 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115439337708322935.html?mod=home_whats_news_us International Business Machines Corp. is expanding its use of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. chips, a boon to AMD as rival Intel Corp. steps up a counterattack. IBM was the first big maker of server systems to adopt AMD's Opteron microprocessor, introduced in April 2003. The computer maker initially focused only on high-performance applications, while competitors such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc. pushed Opteron more widely. At an event in New York today, however, IBM is announcing five new servers for mainstream business applications that will use a new version of the Opteron expected in several weeks. The announcement follows Dell Inc.'s decision in May to adopt Opteron for high-end systems. IBM, Dell and H-P say they also plan to use a new Intel chip -- code-named Woodcrest -- that increases the performance of the Intel Xeon line that is most widely used in low-end servers. But some computer users continue to demand Opteron. "Clearly there are customers that have asked us for this processor capability, and we listened to the marketplace," said Susan Whitney, general manager of IBM's System X product line. AMD's stock has fallen lately, reflecting fierce price competition between the chip makers and fears that Intel will slow AMD's advance. But Mercury Research, a market watcher, reported yesterday that AMD chips accounted for 25.9% of world-wide second-quarter unit shipments of servers based on the standard x86 design, compared with 22.1% in the first quarter. To court customers in the financial community, IBM already sells an Opteron-based blade server, Ms. Whitney said. Blades are computing modules arranged vertically to save space compared with horizontally configured servers. The new Opteron-based machines include two blade servers, which can be upgraded from two chips to four by plugging in a companion module alongside an existing blade, Ms. Whitney said. Systems using the new Opteron chip, which offer the equivalent of two electronic brains, also may be upgraded in the future by plugging in new four-processor chips that AMD is developing, she said. Other features include a technology that accelerates the speed at which its new machines can tap large pools of memory, and software that lets customers monitor and manage the amount of electrical power the computers use, Ms. Whitney said. An AMD spokesman declined to comment. An Intel spokesman noted IBM's commitment to Intel's new Xeon chips. "We just need to double down on our broad efforts to expand our work with IBM," he said. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
