Compaq Cutting... Alpha?

CuriousGeorge113 writes "As a result of Compaq's recent acquisition of Digital Equipment, they plan on closing the Salem, New Hampshire plant which employs 900 people. Most of them will be laid off. The plant currently makes alpha-based server computers. "

Comments

Not even close

[Anonymous Coward]

They are consolidating all alpha manufacturing in North America. See:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990517S00 17

This is likely a cost cutting move now that Pfeiffer is out.

*Alpha* is not being cut

[Anonymous Coward]

A few important points:

• This is not the group which designs the Alpha microprocessor. We're in Shrwesbury, MA, and we are not being cut.
• This is not the group which designs the Alpha systems. They are also based in MA and are also not being cut.
• This is the group which assembles the Alpha systems, after they have been designed and after the processors have been designed and fabricated.
• Compaq still has more people designing and building systems than they need, as there's overlap between the Digital groups and Compaq groups. This is just elimination of some of that redundancy.

In other words, this is nothing to worry about. Alpha is not going anywhere.

Kenneth C. Schalk ( kenneth.schalk@compaq.com)
Alpha Development Group, CAD & Test Technologies

Just some cost cutting, don't panic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Compaq is cutting costs. Their stock dropped like a rock when they announced they weren't going to make the expected profits last quarter (from a high near 50 to about 25). These layoffs to be expected since Compaq bought both Digital and Tandem. Part of the "problem" (as seen by stockholders and analysts) was that Compaq didn't downsize Digital and Tandem as quickly as many folks had expected. They are shifting manufacturing to Houston, TX (Compaq) and Fremont, CA (Ex-Tandem) just to cut costs. They can't survive if all they do is fight with Dell and everyone else over the sliver thin margins of the low-end PC market.

Compaq is sticking with the Alpha chip and don't expect them to drop it in the near future. It goes with their plans to establish themselves even more in the high-end server market. They expect to keep Tru64 (Dec Unix), Linux, and NT around so they can take advantage of whatever develops on the high-end side.

I feel sorry for the folks who are losing their jobs out in Salem, but it was just a matter of time once Compaq bought Digital.

Compaq's Alpha Roadmap

[bob]

According to the latest (5/10/99) Microprocessor Report, Compaq has a fairly aggresive roadmap for Alpha. The item, "Alpha Roadmap Gets Clearer" appears in the "Most Significant Bits" column on page 4 and is attributed to Linley Gwennap. It cites "Long-time Alpha Watcher" Terry Shannon among others. Here's a very quick summary of what the story says:

• 0.25u 21264 (EV67) @ 800MHz by year-end.
• First 700MHz EV67 parts are expected to spec out at 30 SPECint95/base, 60 SPECfp95/base.
• 0.18u 21264 (EV68) @ 1GHz in 1Q00, spec at 50 int/85 fp.
• 0.18u 21364 (EV7) @ 1GHz by 4Q00-1Q01, expected spec 60 int/100 fp.
• EV8 expected 2002.
• EV9 and EV10 are in development.

That doesn't sound like dropping Alpha to me.

You have no idea what your talking about.

[greg]

I work for a Compaq enterprise distributor. Compaq has increased support for and investment in Digital's Alpha product line across the board. The only products that were scuttled were low end x86 products that competed with more successful Compaq PCs. Where the Digital models were more innovative or popular they were rebranded as Compaq products.

Compaq cannot compete in the enterprise against Sun SPARCs, HP PA-RISC, IBM AS400s and RS6000s without Alpha based systems. This is why they have released eight new Alpha system models since they bought Digital and have invested heavily in the new Wildfire architecture.

By the way, Digital was making $14billion a year primarily on its alpha product line before it was bought.

As for cheap x86 compatible chips, I don't see AMD or Cyrix (or Intel for that matter) playing in the enterprise, Sun, IBM, HP and SGI all use Advanced RISC processors.

Just because you use a crummy little x86 CPU doesn't mean everyone should. That would be like Peterbilt getting out of the heavy truck business because more people buy minivans.