RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Mr Bryant
"You still haven't explained why Itanic is more than two years late and the specs are almost half of those promised..." I don't know which roadmap (if any) you are reading from but I'm guessing it's very old, probably from about the same period as Sun were promising something called UltraSPARC V, and probably long before UltraSPARC IIIi+ disappeared too. Please provide a link to any Intel doc that says anything of the like.
"....One other question is why every Itanic release is late...." Compared to Sun chips they're positively timely. But then most chips are late, the recent Atom release being an exception. But the real exception is how many chips Sun claims are "strategic" and then buries. Now, how has Sun been referring to the three-year-late Rock? Oh yeah - "strategic"!
"....Itanic has no future as anything more than a way for server vendors to get to X64...." Strange it's doing so well in the UNIX high-end then, especially as it is taking share from SPARC Slowaris. Must be a lot of Sun customers real eager to get onto x64 on hp rather than Sun kit (Galaxy really must be that bad).
"....The shared bus is the first example of why this is true....." <Sniff, sniff> Smells like male bovine manure to me! It's just like when hp and IBM started using high-grade components from their x86 servers in their UNIX kit and were thus able to lower the price without compromising reliability. Sun didn't have the same benefits of a large x86 base to gain from the economies of scale from such a move, so Sun started spreading FUD about hp and IBM using "cheap PC parts". Fast forward a few years and Sun has bought in x86 designs in a desperate attempt to slow their downward spiral, using those same "cheap PC parts". The new common socket design for Tukzilla and next-gen Xeon is another smart move as it will allow vendors to share more components between x64 and Itanium ranges, which means they will still be massively cheaper and more powerful than any server Sun can make (or buy badged from Fujitsu). And Sun will still not be able to match hp or even IBM becuase Galaxy has such small marketshare and Sun has so little cash it cannot afford to spend on new server developments, it has to follow where others lead.
"...X64 is OK on the low to mid end, but trying to run a real high-end on the x64 architecture is death...." Strange thing to say seeing as Sun's whole future hangs (by a thread) on Slowaris on x64. All the evidence is there - the abandoning of the high-end, the failure of Niagara to climb out its narrow niche, the lack of date for a successor to SPARC64 VII, the desperation with which Sun have chased hp, IBM and Dell to try and get them to resell Sun support for Slowaris x86 on their x64 server ranges. When IBM announced they were supporting Slowaris on x86, an IBM salegrunt said to me; "That's it, SPARC is dead, if they get on ProLiant as well then they'll be a software business only within five years." What he should have said is that Sun will be dead and gone in ten years because Red Hat and Novell will beat it in every way on x64, just like Power and Itanium have hammered it in the UNIX arena.
"....X64 is OK on the low to mid end, but trying to run a real high-end on the x64 architecture is death...." Which is why hp have Itanium in Integrity (you remember, the CPU that allows you to run multiple datacenter OSs in the same chassis, the one taking so much share from Sun in the high-end?). Which is also why hp are the number one server vendor, because customers know hp can supply integrated solutions from the desktop through to the top of the high-end (ever heard of NonStop?), backed up by a trusted support structure and a range of management tools, storage, etc, etc. Oh, and those printers you Sunshiners hate so much!
"....Also, Matt, the post was talking about Itanium here, not SPARC, though I know you are singly focused on Sun for some reason. Please, please, please, don't start talking about Sun again. No one wants to hear you. Just give us some reasoning for the questions I asked. Don't try to hide from Itanics problems by pointing at Sun's problems...." Ahhhhh, don't cry. You Sunshiners tried to make out that Tukzilla being delayed by six months so it could take advantage of DDR3 (by the way, how many times faster will that be than whatever memory Rock gets, should it ever get out, and cheaper?), so I merely used the example of Sun's awful history, poor chip record and dire financial position to show you that Tukzilla really isn't in any trouble at all. After all, if you look at the public roadmaps, Intel's has three coming generations of Itanium (Tukwila, Poulsen and Kitson) with dates on the roadmap, whereas IBM only has Power7 (no set date, just marked "Future") and nothing to follow, Fujitsu has no date for SPARC64 VIII and nothing to follow it, and Sun's roadmap for developments after Rock and T2 have no dates and should really be filed under "fiction".