Well, I am sure many are gleefully wring their hands, but in the long
run lack of competition is not a Good Thing.  Moreover, with the funds
no longer needed for Sparc development Sun could be a much more fierce
competitor.  I am just surprised that it took Sun this long.

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Keith Parris [mailto:keithparris_NOSPAM@yahoo.com]
  Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 9:35 AM
  To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
  Subject: Re: Alpha is phased out .... UltraSPARC V in the same way .....
  
  
  fabiopenvms@yahoo.com.br (Fabio Cardoso) wrote in message 
  news:<f30679fb.0404071102.310d2fae@posting.google.com>...
  > Looks like Sun is firing SPARC engineers ! May be they will 
  > adopt AMD chips as standard ! So... Good By Solaris Sparc ! 
  
  The Register is reporting that Sun has cancelled the UltraSparc V
  (Millenium) and Gemini chip projects:
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/09/sun_kills_us5/
  and cancelled the UltraSparc VI back in February:
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/12/sun_shelves_ultrasparc_vi/
  
  ---
  Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
  Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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Rob Young wrote:
>         Very good thing from Intel's and HP's perspective.  After all,
>         as co-developer you can bet that HP gets a fat Itanium discount.

And as sole large customer for that IA64 thing, you can bet that HP's large
fat discounts are going to make it even harder for Intel to ever make money on
that bloated low volume thing.

>         Sure - get rid of the UltraSparc boat anchor.  Likewise, ditch
>         Alpha development.  Fierce competitor?  Bzzzt.  The wind went
>         out of their sails 3 years back.

Isn't Fujitsu now doing the sparc development ?

"Tom Linden" <tom@kednos.com> wrote in message
news:NDEMLKKEBOIFBMJLCECIEEEIDBAA.tom@kednos.com...
> Well, I am sure many are gleefully wring their hands, but in the long
> run lack of competition is not a Good Thing.
>
No argument, but I'm not so sure competition will suffer with the phase out
of Sparc, and it is a phase out despite any kind of spin Sun puts on it.
Too many of us remember what happened to the Alpha, and the eerie parallels
now unfolding.

Sun is NOT going the Intel route, so if the development dollars flow into
furthering AMD64 this will not be a boon for the Itanium or the aging P4
line at the 2-8 CPU server niche.  Intel is already being hurt or we would
not have seen a  return to the PIII core in the Centrino or the
wearenotAMD64 extensions for the Xeons.

I got a snail mail the other day, nice glossy brochure touting some Itanium
high performance computing seminar.  I think it's obvious Intel is trying to
carve out an ecological niche for the Itanium as an Alpha HPC replacement
since the desktop market isn't going to happen (where oh where is the native
Itanium version of MS Office?), but I'm not convinced Intel can keep up the
performance race on two fronts against AMD.

Meanwhile Sun still has Fujitsu to keep existing customers on an upgrade
path for Sparcs until they can get an AMD migration going.  I'm not clear if
the Fujitsu Sparc is a contender at the HPC high end, though AMD Beowulf
clusers seem to be competitive with Itaniums when cost is a factor.
   Jack Peacock

In article <NDEMLKKEBOIFBMJLCECIEEEIDBAA.tom@kednos.com>, "Tom Linden" <tom@kednos.com> writes:
> Well, I am sure many are gleefully wring their hands, but in the long
> run lack of competition is not a Good Thing. 


	Very good thing from Intel's and HP's perspective.  After all,
	as co-developer you can bet that HP gets a fat Itanium discount.


> Moreover, with the funds
> no longer needed for Sparc development Sun could be a much more fierce
> competitor.  

	Sure - get rid of the UltraSparc boat anchor.  Likewise, ditch
	Alpha development.  Fierce competitor?  Bzzzt.  The wind went
	out of their sails 3 years back.

> I am just surprised that it took Sun this long.

	Nope.  They certainly couldn't have announced the murder of 
	UltarSparc V and Gemini without another Sparc to act as a place
	holder on a shredded UltraSparc roadmap.  Hence, "Rock" announcement
	in early February was very important:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/12/HNsunrock_1.html

Sun adds Rock to its UltraSparc roadmap
Company outlines plans for two new multithreading processor families 
 
By James Niccolai, IDG News Service February 12, 2004   
 
Sun Microsystems Inc. shed some more light on its UltraSparc roadmap Wednesday,
outlining plans for two new processor families that will use multithreading
techniques to boost the performance of Sun's servers. 

---

	Rock is a roadmap placeholder.  Surely, US5 murder decision was
	made some time ago and they needed to get the roadmap filled out.

	So for grins, let's suppose they murdered US5 and Gemini in December.
	They would have had no "high-end" UltraSparc processor on a roadmap
	as a placeholder.  What kind of signals would that have thrown
	to their customer base?  As others have gleefully reminded us here,
	Sun "has it right" as they are transitioning away from UltraSparc
	in a nice manner (instead of having the rug pulled out from under
	them as Alpha).  But now one wonders, don't they?  After all, such
	a high profile project as UltraSparc V (7 years in the making) has
	been deep-sixed. 

				Rob


> 
>   -----Original Message-----
>   From: Keith Parris [mailto:keithparris_NOSPAM@yahoo.com]
>   Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 9:35 AM
>   To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
>   Subject: Re: Alpha is phased out .... UltraSPARC V in the same way .....
>   
>   
>   fabiopenvms@yahoo.com.br (Fabio Cardoso) wrote in message 
>   news:<f30679fb.0404071102.310d2fae@posting.google.com>...
>   > Looks like Sun is firing SPARC engineers ! May be they will 
>   > adopt AMD chips as standard ! So... Good By Solaris Sparc ! 
>   
>   The Register is reporting that Sun has cancelled the UltraSparc V
>   (Millenium) and Gemini chip projects:
>   http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/09/sun_kills_us5/
>   and cancelled the UltraSparc VI back in February:
>   http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/12/sun_shelves_ultrasparc_vi/
>   
>   ---
>   Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
>   Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>   Version: 6.0.655 / Virus Database: 420 - Release Date: 4/8/2004
>   
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.655 / Virus Database: 420 - Release Date: 4/8/2004
> 

Jack Peacock wrote:
> path for Sparcs until they can get an AMD migration going.  I'm not clear if
> the Fujitsu Sparc is a contender at the HPC high end, though AMD Beowulf
> clusers seem to be competitive with Itaniums when cost is a factor.


It seems to me that "HPC" is no longer a chip issue. Some folks have built
mega systems with MACs, Google has built it with wintel crap, and Intel/HP
have paid a few places to build something with that IA64 thing. And of course,
there are plenty of places that run IBM mainframes or Power based systems.

HPC used to mean Cray and Control Data. But now, it seems some people manage
to do those tasks on lowly 8086 game controllers.


In a way, Carly is right in stating that enterprise systems will move to
commodity chips. Get commodity chips and build mega systems with clever
motherboards and inter CPU interfaces. The performance difference between
commodity chips and fancy niche market chips probably isn't sufficiant anymore
to warrant spending the big bucks on those low volume porprietary chips like IA64.

Yes, it would have been much better for the industry if Digital had succeeded
in making Alpha competitive. IA64 would have been stillborn. It woudl have
been a battle between Power, 8086 and Alpha.

Right now, it is between Power, 8086 and Sparc, with Sparc's future being
debated.

In article <407B2AB9.EA54CF1@istop.com>, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@istop.com> writes:

>>         Sure - get rid of the UltraSparc boat anchor.  Likewise, ditch
>>         Alpha development.  Fierce competitor?  Bzzzt.  The wind went
>>         out of their sails 3 years back.
> 
> Isn't Fujitsu now doing the sparc development ?

	Have been for quite some time.  They haven't dropped the
	anchor yet.

				Rob

Rob Young wrote:
> In article <NDEMLKKEBOIFBMJLCECIEEEIDBAA.tom@kednos.com>, "Tom Linden" <tom@kednos.com> writes:
> 
>>Well, I am sure many are gleefully wring their hands, but in the long
>>run lack of competition is not a Good Thing. 
> 
> 
> 
> 	Very good thing from Intel's and HP's perspective.  After all,
> 	as co-developer you can bet that HP gets a fat Itanium discount.
> 



2 x Itanium 2 1.5 Ghz 6 MB cache 8 GB RAM 73 GB disk

Dell 22,298
HP   26,880

Over half the cost of both systems is in the 2 Itanium 2
CPU's

Shame that the fat discount doesn't translate into lower prices
then isn't it.

And we know that Dell are making money on the Poweredge
but HP on the rx2600 ??????


> 
>>Moreover, with the funds
>>no longer needed for Sparc development Sun could be a much more fierce
>>competitor.  
> 
> 
> 	Sure - get rid of the UltraSparc boat anchor.  Likewise, ditch
> 	Alpha development.  Fierce competitor?  Bzzzt.  The wind went
> 	out of their sails 3 years back.
> 

Well its any interesting theory but in fact we have only cancelled
a CPU not the whole platform so as theorys go its not up to much
but then again were you expecting it to be ?

> 
>>I am just surprised that it took Sun this long.
> 
> 
> 	Nope.  They certainly couldn't have announced the murder of 
> 	UltarSparc V and Gemini without another Sparc to act as a place
> 	holder on a shredded UltraSparc roadmap.  Hence, "Rock" announcement
> 	in early February was very important:
> 
> http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/12/HNsunrock_1.html
> 
> Sun adds Rock to its UltraSparc roadmap
> Company outlines plans for two new multithreading processor families 
>  
> By James Niccolai, IDG News Service February 12, 2004   
>  
> Sun Microsystems Inc. shed some more light on its UltraSparc roadmap Wednesday,
> outlining plans for two new processor families that will use multithreading
> techniques to boost the performance of Sun's servers. 
> 
> ---
> 
> 	Rock is a roadmap placeholder.  Surely, US5 murder decision was
> 	made some time ago and they needed to get the roadmap filled out.
> 

Sorry but your theories are just way to wacky how about
reality instead.

Niagara opened up a totally new avenue, Rock is the
logical progression after Niagara.

Regards
Andrew Harrison

JF Mezei wrote:
> Rob Young wrote:
> 
>>        Very good thing from Intel's and HP's perspective.  After all,
>>        as co-developer you can bet that HP gets a fat Itanium discount.
> 
> 
> And as sole large customer for that IA64 thing, you can bet that HP's large
> fat discounts are going to make it even harder for Intel to ever make money on
> that bloated low volume thing.
> 

Or the list price stays high (most people expect new
CPU's to start expensive and then as volume ramps decrease in
price. HP's fat discounts if they exist arn't going to help
if the ramp up never happens.

> 
>>        Sure - get rid of the UltraSparc boat anchor.  Likewise, ditch
>>        Alpha development.  Fierce competitor?  Bzzzt.  The wind went
>>        out of their sails 3 years back.
> 
> 
> Isn't Fujitsu now doing the sparc development ?

No, Fujitsu is also doing SPARC development. They have their
own range of SPARC CPU's called SPARC64 which they are
developing.

regards
Andrew Harrison