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Alpha Lives! But Who Will Market It?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the return-from-the-dead dept.

chriton writes "The Inquirer is running articles about HP's and new "Marvel" server which will arrive Tuesday, Jan 14th and the expectation that HP will try to keep it's performance quiet. Not because it's bad like Itanic I, but because it's too good! It's built on Alpha EV78 processors connected by a switched fabric and promises blazing performance. "Marvel has, apparently some rollickingly good benchmarks that HP wants to underplay, just in case people start comparing the performance of the Alpha Marvel architecture with the Itanium 2 it also sells, and perhaps more importantly, the SuperDome machines." Alpha offers the kind of choice and competition the processor market will sorely miss when it goes. The FTC was sleeping when they allowed HP to acquire it."

6 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Marvel should use what they own by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Have Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, and all the other X-Men, using Alphas in the comic books. An endorsement from Professor X might be enough to get me to buy one. "Look! Cerebro is now 100 times more powerful thanks to this Alpha!"

    1. Re:Marvel should use what they own by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nah, more like, "this processor is so fast, it's computations have gone faster than the speed of light, thus sending us all back in time!"

      Scary.

    2. Re:Marvel should use what they own by ericvids · · Score: 2, Funny

      See, it's the processor that travelled at the speed of light, not us, so it was _the processor_ that got sent back in time.

      Hmmm, so that explains why the Alphas were superior in the past...

      --
      Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
  2. Marvel? Switched Fabric? by DarthWiggle · · Score: 3, Funny
    Maybe they should call it the "Spider-Man"... *groan*

    /me whistles his way into the night...

  3. Re:Sad but true by bitfoam · · Score: 3, Funny

    Who wants to run missions critical apps on an Alpha processor? No wonder it can't sell! If it's really good and been around that long, it should be at least a Beta processor by now... ;-)

  4. Re:What's the point? by paranoic · · Score: 3, Funny

    The only significant computer purchases made these days by businesses and consumers alike contain the words "Dell", "Intel", and "Microsoft".

    Othwise known as DIM