Sun Announces New AMD-Based Product Line

Transfan76 writes "Today Sun Microsystems has officially announced an alliance with AMD. They "have formed an alliance to deliver a broad range of AMD Opteron[tm] processor-based systems, Sun also announced it plans to offer its Java Enterprise System on the AMD Opteron processor and is significantly extending the reach of its Solaris Operating System (OS) and leadership in the 64-bit space." You can read the official press release from Sun here. And the AMD release here." We previously reported rumored plans to this effect a few days back.

Comments

AMD SPARC?

[forgoil]

I assume that AMD at this point in time has no plans for any SPARC CPUs, but I wonder how much AMD could do if they got all Sun's SPARC resources and basically bodged together a next gen SPARC from the Opteron. But something tells me that x86-64 is the way of the future if Sun don't want to slip behind more.

Re:AMD SPARC?

[southpolesammy]

SPARC is an open specification. Nothing's stopping them from doing it now, except perhaps ROI.

Wonderful news

[Anonymous Coward]

Air conditioning manufacturers specialising in cooling server rooms will be delighted with Sun's switch...

Re:Wonderful news

[sammy baby]

My wife does. Every time she gets out of the shower, in fact. Claims it works better than her hair dryer.

Who Knowns

[Anonymous Coward]

The Java Desktop they could create some serious revenue. Imagine a large company with Opteron workstation for engineering and scientific appilcations and SunRays as e-mail/web/StarOffice boxes.

Sun, the company who is now renowed for their expensive systems could use "commodity" computing to bring themselves back and Linux to the desktop. Who would have thought.

Re:Who Knowns

[digitalhermit]

It could be one of those ideas whose time has finally arrived. My experience with Java hasn't been all that great. There are several competing Java VMs and each had idiosyncracies and problems that precluded the "write once, run anywhere" philosophy from actually working. Getting Java to work under Linux is not quite as simple as under Windows or MacOS, and messages on news groups, the Fedora Core lists, and in local LUGs attest to this.

The latest releases are *much* easier, however. I downloaded and installed the latest Sun Java SDK on a Fedora Core 1 machine. The graphical installer put everything in /opt (not exactly LSB, but I can live with it) and exited. It didn't set JAVA_HOME or adjust any user PATH variables, but hunting through the instructions I was able to find the correct chapter (I knew this before reading, just wanted to confirm that they did say so).

Now Java has always had this (perhaps undeserved) reputation for being slow. Not the case with Java/Fedora. Whether it's the NPTL that's part of Fedora or optimizations in the Java VM itself, the jar files I tried opened as quickly as natively compiled applications. Responsiveness was just as good. For the record I tried Jedit, Arachnophilia, Mindterm, WeirdX and a bunch of math/science applications for fractals, mapping, function graphing, etc.. Yes, a lot of the applications are already available natively under Linux, but the idea that I can move my desktop environment to anywhere without setting up automatic NFS mounts, playing with VNC servers, or fussing with roaming profiles is pretty cool.

Now I'm not as big a Sun fan as I was five years ago, but I think this technology is pretty cool.

Re:Why AMD?

[chill]

IBM is a major competitor of Sun. And since Sun has SPARC, it has all it needs in the way of non-x86 processors. It needs a good x86-compatible offering.

Why not Intel? I think Sun & Intel are old enemies over the SPARC/x86 competition.

IBM and now Sun

[Euphonious Coward]

With IBM shipping Opteron boxes, and now Sun announcing, it seems the Opteron architecture probably has legs. When HP announces, all doubt will fade.

(If you never had doubts about Opteron's ultimate prospects, consider Alpha. It had more going for it than Opteron ever did, and generations earlier. Current Alphas (EV7 and EV79) are fully competitive with current Opteron and Itanium, even without a proper engineering team for several years, yet the Alpha is "dead".)

Intel could do a lot worse than to revive it. It may need to, to stay competitive with Opteron.

Re:IBM and now Sun

[You're All Wrong]

Itanium 1 blew chunks. Very slowly.

Itanium 2 actaully contains a fair bit of Alpha technology, and in the right situations is not a bad processor. (It's not my style of processor though, I'm anti-VLIW pro-OOO).

However, if all the investment within DEC and Compaq and HPaq that was diverted to other projects over the last few years had been maintained for the Alpha project, I'm sure that the hypothetical late-2003 Alphas would be more powerful than the I2.

It was burried alive, there's no denying that.
Good to see a bunch of them at #2 on the top-500 still.
However, I think it's too late to revive it, that's just a pipe-dream now. (As it's potentially commercial suicide for HP, amongst other reasons.)

I think that only IBM can be the new DEC now. Intel/AMD/HP have got backward compatability 'issues' (yeah, the Itanium's an albatross round their neck, and it's only a few years old!). The only "fresh start" that's got a future is the Power architecture. IMHO.
(And I say that as an Alpha-fanboy, and not that Power is particularly fresh, but it was designed with as much of a future as the Alpha was - 20 years or so, assumig they don't commit chipicide.).

YAW

Re:But will this really help web-focused enterpris

[oldmanmtn]

optimizing their syndicated dynamic solutions marketbase...cross-media functionalities...enterprise-level mindshare paradigms

Good god man! You've created a Content Black Hole! You're dragging down the Scores of every post in the vicinity!

Excellent!

[painehope]

The AMD64 ( or x86-64, whatever we're calling it this week ) architecture is very promising, and Sun is still an excellent vendor ( despite numerous blunders...they've made some horrible mistakes, but they've also had some great successes ).
This has the potential to breathe new life into both vendors, and gives us all an alternative, which is important in a marketplace that has such a dynamic history but is currently being choked to death by certain vendors that think marketing is more important than quality.
Now who should I get my next worksation from, IBM w/ SUSE or RHWS, or Sun w/ their desktop Linux stack? Hmm...

Re:Why AMD?

[jared_hanson]

Well, IBM is one of Sun's largest competitors, so it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to jump in bed with them. There probably isn't a whole lot of reason to not choose Intel, other than the fact that Sun operates on religious principles rather than business ones.

Sun likes to think they have the power to stick it to anyone they want. So, they are going after Intel by partnering with AMD. These practices haven't played out well for them in recent years.

Sun stuck with UNIX in a time when everyone was getting away from it. This paid off well for them a few years back. However, they have since used the same philosophy and have been digging a big hole. They tried to ride out on Solaris and SPARC, but the shift is towards Linux and x86. This move is a step in the right direction, but it might be too late. They have Java, but while Sun has been moping around, IBM jumped on the Linux bandwagon, and took a lot of the Java momentum away from Sun.

In short, if Sun would have played their cards right, they could be where IBM is today. Now, however, they have 2-3 years of catchup to do, and not many people are going to wait around.

Sun also announces 0.5-1m desktop win in China

[ChrisRijk]

Register article

Along with the Opteron systems, Sun announced a big win for its Java Desktop System. The Chinese government will roll out 500,000 to one million PCs with the software over the next year.

"This, I believe makes us the number one Linux player on the planet," McNealy said. "The goal is to reach the Chinese government's goal of 500 million alternative desktops, and you can decide what alternative means."

No pulled punches

[painehope]

stands as a beacon for HP and IBM customers facing a dead-end Unix, and Microsoft customers frustrated with security and fragility
I wouldn't be surprised if they kicked a dog on the way off the stage...

Union of the underdogs?

[Shutter_BC]

I've been an AMD fan for quite a while, as anyone who reads articles at Anandtech tends to become. This has been more or less already stated, but... where is this going to lead without a strong media presence or public interest? I wonder how Sun and AMD plan to educate non-techies and convince them that they're cool.

I wish the both of them the best of luck, and one of these days, may good engineering prevail. I hope.

Reported by Slashdot?

[szquirrel]

We previously reported rumored plans to this effect a few days back.

Where "previously reported" means "we linked to the article on news.com".

Credit where credit is due?

And how good is that?

[AndroidCat]

[..] offering unmatched levels of privacy, second only to the Windows .NET security framework.

Second to .NET's security? I have a bad feeling about this...

Re:Why AMD?

[Hoser McMoose]

Could be because the Opteron is one of the fastest chip in the world at executing Java code right now, and that's when running in IA-32 (aka 32-bit x86) mode?

Check out the results for SPEC JBB2000. On a per-processor basis, AMD's Opteron chips are second only to Intel/HP Itanium2 based systems, and the Opterons are quite a bit cheaper. Actually, when combined with the new x48 Opteron chips announced alongside the Sun deal, AMD should make up most of the current 8% difference between the two chips.

So, they get better performance than anything IBM has to offer (even the full-fledged Power4 can't match the Opteron in Java if the above test is to be believed) and a much lower price tag than what Intel is looking for. Seems like a pretty good choice if you ask me.

What about a compiler?

[mi]

Sun offers a fairly advanced compiler and, perhaps more importantly, "performance libraries" on their Sparc machines. Intel is doing the same on their machines -- Linux, FreeBSD (via port), and Windows. Will Sun do likewise with AMD or will they just help GCC in the amd64 optimization area(s)?

Re:Why AMD?

[oldmanmtn]

There probably isn't a whole lot of reason to not choose Intel, other than the fact that Sun operates on religious principles rather than business ones.

Opteron is cheaper, faster, and requires less power than Itanium. AMD's 64-bit ISA is a hell of a lot cleaner than Itanic's. And AMD appears to be making the switch to 90nm technology faster and better than Intel, which will further help their power/cooling story.

HP to intro Athlon 64 desktop today

[whig]

According to the Inquirer:

AMD IS LIKELY to get a boost from Hewlett Packard today, with reports saying the firm will start selling a Presario 8000Z as soon as Wednesday.

According to the report on cnet.mp3.com, HP will offer a variety of different options with the desktop, which will be available in retail this week.

The machine, the report says, is just one of a family of Athlon 64 desktops HP will sell, and costs $1,239 for a basic machine.

But HP won't start using the Athlon FX - a sort of Opteron - for a little while, it appears. If and when it does, it will be offered as a gaming machine.

The announcement is a boost for AMD, coupled with Sun's expected endorsement of its Opteron microprocessors today.

Had to say it

[aardwolf204]

I've been an AMD fan for quite a while

You must be very dizzy. My AMD fan goes 5000 RPM.


Sorry, couldnt resist. I like AMD too, and yes, Anand could take Tom any day.