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Sun Cancels UltraSPARC IIIi+
Doctor Memory writes "El Reg is reporting that Sun has finally come clean and admitted that they have killed the UltraSPARC IIIi+ chip. According to John Fowler, Sun's server chief, 'We canceled it last fiscal year to focus on the ramp (up) of UltraSPARC IV+, Niagara and Niagara 2.' Sun has had great success with its new Niagara line, and with it's line of AMD-based systems."
Except the smallest USIV box they make is the 490, 4RU and non-hs power supplies. Get me a 240 replacement with a USIV and I'll be all over it. Or better yet figure out how to add HS dual power and the USIV to the 210.
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The concentration of R&D on the high end and then deriving a cheap version of the chip is what has been causing Sun trouble for a while. Intel tried the same thing with Itanium and it didn't work for them either.
Sun's current method, introduce the low end chip - Niagara - first and then build up to the high end stuff (the Rock CPU) seems to be a much better idea. Produce the high volume stuff first and use the revenue from that to produce the high end, high margin stuff.
You know, that's the second time I've seen that website, and I'm still not impressed.
Class action lawsuit due to patent infringement of Kodak's patents, related Java.
There was a patent lawsuit. I don't know where you get "class action" part from. Sun also settled and licensed the technology immediately after the judge decided they were infringing. So you proved... how responsible Sun is?
Sun has done some questionable things, but those aren't it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Are they even going to have more than a token low-end HS anymore, or relegate the low-end to AMD64, with overlap in the middle?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Yes, but Intel has a long history of chips besides the Itanic that have done well with the top down method of development (marketing).
Xeon anyone? Don't laser cut a few pins needed for SMP functionality, sell the same CPU as being better, therefore, then profit.
Opteron? Oo...how is an Opteron very much different than a regular A64...really?
All CPU makers have a marketing department that had sold the same bit under different names for different amounts of cash, with varying bits of cache and power management features and blah blah. Opterons come off the creamy spot on a wafer, regular A64s off the dregs on that same wafer...maybe with less cache or a lower clock or what have you.
Sun's problem isn't with manufacturing. It's problem is with the market. No one wants their slow yet very expensive CPU's, and no amount of (top down, bottom up) marketing will change that. There was a day when a Sparc CPU was a good thing. Now, it's just another thing in a sea of things that are a lot cheaper and no less fast than a Sparc.
Really? Have you ever run anything mission critical? You know, like you're losing 250k every 15 mins it's down critical? I have.
Dell and Linux don't even exist in that universe. HP used to, but I'm leary nowadays. IBM with AIX (and maybe their mainframes) and Sun with Solaris are the only answers.
The people who post comments like the one you replied to, don't run anything mission critical and have probably never seen anything more powerful than your average x86 box. They think only about the immediate costs, and things like reliability, rack space, cooling, power consumption, configuration, scalability, available utilities etc. never even enter the equation for them. The fact that the initial costs of the servers are the least expensive issue when dealing with large systems never even crosses their mind.
The UltraSPARC T1 has an 8-core CPU out on the market today, with 4-thread hyperthreading. Ie, 32-threads at one time on a single CPU. It does this at 72 Watts. Intel and AMD are only talking about quad-core CPUs for next year.
Well the V210 doesn't have dual power supplies, so you are in direct agreement with the post you replied to, which said: "As a matter of fact, all servers that sun makes that have dual power supplies are hotswappable."