Re: HP ready to ship Opteron servers

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:14:24 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:

>http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-514...ml?tag=nefd_top

What's funny/interesting about that report is the reaction of the usual AMD
bashers/Intel cheerleaders, i.e. IDC & Gartner - they sound just a wee bit
grudging in their acknowledgement that it could be the way to go.

We'll see if this is another example of the "genius" of Michael Dell.:-)

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message
news:qnmc10tvcqin9vda1tocu894v1caicr12p@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:14:24 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
> <ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:
>
> >http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-514...ml?tag=nefd_top
>
> What's funny/interesting about that report is the reaction of the usual
AMD
> bashers/Intel cheerleaders, i.e. IDC & Gartner - they sound just a wee bit
> grudging in their acknowledgement that it could be the way to go.

I was sort of thinking to myself that it's been kinda cold here this winter,
maybe hell hath frozen over?

> We'll see if this is another example of the "genius" of Michael Dell.:-)

I can understand why the Opteron is seeming so attractive to these tier-1
OEMs. It's not the attraction of awesome SPEC numbers, or the drawing power
of amazing TPM-C numbers; I think they're being drawn in like flies because
of Opteron's pre-existing infrastructure. You can buy barebones Newisys 1-,
2-, and 4-way servers right off the shelf and badge it with your own names.
If you don't want to go with Newisys, then all you have to do is buy a
motherboard off-the-shelf from Tyan or MSI or someone else, that can support
upto 4-way too.

In fact, I heard that's exactly what IBM did too, it bought a 2-way mobo
from MSI, and then stuffed it in one of their standard 2U cases, and voila
an eServer 325. Sun may be going with Newisys servers, so their only R&D
outlay would be to engineer a psychadelic purple Sun Fire faceplate for it.
HP might go ahead and do the same thing as Sun.

This seems like AMD is doing for these OEMs, that which Intel normally does
only for Dell. That is, it is pre-engineering the whole server for them, so
that they have very little outlay of their own. If more and more OEMs start
jumping on this cookie-cutter bandwagon, then obviously some customers are
going to start to notice that they are getting the exact same server from
all of these disparate OEMs, so at that point the OEMs may be forced to do
some of their own engineering to differentiate themselves from each other.

Yousuf Khan

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 06:55:18 +0000, Yousuf Khan wrote:

> "George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message
> news:qnmc10tvcqin9vda1tocu894v1caicr12p@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:14:24 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
>> <ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:
>>
>> >http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-514...ml?tag=nefd_top
>>
>> What's funny/interesting about that report is the reaction of the usual
> AMD
>> bashers/Intel cheerleaders, i.e. IDC & Gartner - they sound just a wee bit
>> grudging in their acknowledgement that it could be the way to go.
>
> I was sort of thinking to myself that it's been kinda cold here this winter,
> maybe hell hath frozen over?
>
>> We'll see if this is another example of the "genius" of Michael Dell.:-)
>
> I can understand why the Opteron is seeming so attractive to these tier-1
> OEMs. It's not the attraction of awesome SPEC numbers, or the drawing power
> of amazing TPM-C numbers; I think they're being drawn in like flies because
> of Opteron's pre-existing infrastructure. You can buy barebones Newisys 1-,
> 2-, and 4-way servers right off the shelf and badge it with your own names.
> If you don't want to go with Newisys, then all you have to do is buy a
> motherboard off-the-shelf from Tyan or MSI or someone else, that can support
> upto 4-way too.
>
> In fact, I heard that's exactly what IBM did too, it bought a 2-way mobo
> from MSI, and then stuffed it in one of their standard 2U cases, and voila
> an eServer 325. Sun may be going with Newisys servers, so their only R&D
> outlay would be to engineer a psychadelic purple Sun Fire faceplate for it.
> HP might go ahead and do the same thing as Sun.
>
> This seems like AMD is doing for these OEMs, that which Intel normally does
> only for Dell. That is, it is pre-engineering the whole server for them, so
> that they have very little outlay of their own. If more and more OEMs start
> jumping on this cookie-cutter bandwagon, then obviously some customers are
> going to start to notice that they are getting the exact same server from
> all of these disparate OEMs, so at that point the OEMs may be forced to do
> some of their own engineering to differentiate themselves from each other.
>
> Yousuf Khan

Do I hear commodity, this could really play into the white box market if
chips and hardware become a commodity. Then service would come more into
play, I only see the customer as the winner here. If Dell does sell
Opterons will they loose their special pricing with Intel?
Also will they offer AMD through all their lines? I can only imagine the
cocked up deals, we see Opteron on the servers but strictly Intel for
everything else. Then customers will wonder why they can get a AMD server,
but not a desktop. That will be funny to explain, I think that IBM could
be a big winner in all of this.

Gnu_Raiz

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 06:55:18 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<ABCbjsk90DEF@GHIhotmailJKL.com> wrote:
>"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message
>news:qnmc10tvcqin9vda1tocu894v1caicr12p@4ax.com...
>> What's funny/interesting about that report is the reaction of the usual
>AMD
>> bashers/Intel cheerleaders, i.e. IDC & Gartner - they sound just a wee bit
>> grudging in their acknowledgement that it could be the way to go.
>
>I was sort of thinking to myself that it's been kinda cold here this winter,
>maybe hell hath frozen over?
>
>> We'll see if this is another example of the "genius" of Michael Dell.:-)
>
>I can understand why the Opteron is seeming so attractive to these tier-1
>OEMs. It's not the attraction of awesome SPEC numbers, or the drawing power
>of amazing TPM-C numbers; I think they're being drawn in like flies because
>of Opteron's pre-existing infrastructure. You can buy barebones Newisys 1-,
>2-, and 4-way servers right off the shelf and badge it with your own names.
>If you don't want to go with Newisys, then all you have to do is buy a
>motherboard off-the-shelf from Tyan or MSI or someone else, that can support
>upto 4-way too.

AMD has also contracted out Celestica to do some 2 and 4 way servers.
To date, almost all of the 4P Opteron serves I've seen have used the
Celestica design. Tyan also seems like they're getting into the
server design-and-resell thing with the Opteron. Certainly makes
things easy for the little guys, though I don't know that it's as big
of a benefit to the Tier-1 OEMs as you suggest. IBM and HP certainly
have enough resources to design their own Opteron servers if they so
chose, it just comes down to a question of whether the cost to do so
would outweigh the extra cost to pay someone else to do the design
when split across the total number of servers they expect to sell.

>In fact, I heard that's exactly what IBM did too, it bought a 2-way mobo
>from MSI, and then stuffed it in one of their standard 2U cases, and voila
>an eServer 325. Sun may be going with Newisys servers, so their only R&D
>outlay would be to engineer a psychadelic purple Sun Fire faceplate for it.
>HP might go ahead and do the same thing as Sun.

From what I could see, Sun didn't even redesign the faceplate, just
put some purple stickers on it :>

As for IBM, just have a look at MSI's website. Take a look at the
K1-1000 dual-processor 1U Opteron server and than look at IBM's e325.
I think you'll notice some distinct similarities!

>This seems like AMD is doing for these OEMs, that which Intel normally does
>only for Dell. That is, it is pre-engineering the whole server for them, so
>that they have very little outlay of their own. If more and more OEMs start
>jumping on this cookie-cutter bandwagon, then obviously some customers are
>going to start to notice that they are getting the exact same server from
>all of these disparate OEMs, so at that point the OEMs may be forced to do
>some of their own engineering to differentiate themselves from each other.

Well, I'm not sure who's doing all the designing and who's just doing
the selling, but it certainly seems to be the way that things are
going. It's not just AMD and Opteron servers though, IBM's e335 looks
like a near-exact copy of the IBM e325/MSI K1-1000 server except using
a pair of Xeon processors instead of a pair of Opterons. A few tweaks
in the processor and memory placement on the motherboard, but
otherwise they're the same server. I also wouldn't be at all
surprised if you could find some servers identical to those that Dell
being sold by other vendors. Different bezel and some different
stickers, but the same on the inside.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

"Gnu_Raiz" <Gnu_Raiz@uptime-is-us.net> wrote in message
news:bc53bb3b684d610c42045b20cddab75d@news.teranews.com...
> Do I hear commodity, this could really play into the white box market if
> chips and hardware become a commodity. Then service would come more into
> play, I only see the customer as the winner here. If Dell does sell
> Opterons will they loose their special pricing with Intel?

Absolutely, Dell will lose its discounts. That's why Dell will never do
this.

> Also will they offer AMD through all their lines? I can only imagine the
> cocked up deals, we see Opteron on the servers but strictly Intel for
> everything else. Then customers will wonder why they can get a AMD server,
> but not a desktop. That will be funny to explain, I think that IBM could
> be a big winner in all of this.

It won't matter, if Dell goes with AMD on anything, then it will lose
discounts on everything. So at that point it might as well offer AMD in all
of its lines.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan <ABCbjsk90DEF@ghihotmailjkl.com> wrote:
> It won't matter, if Dell goes with AMD on anything, then
> it will lose discounts on everything. So at that point it
> might as well offer AMD in all of its lines.

Is this true? It sounds like restraint of trade, illegal
under US law. Intel has been investigated, will be again,
and has reason to be cautious.

More likely, Dell would lose co-operative advertising
contributions from Intel on any ads mentioning competitive
(AMD) products

-- Robert