Itanium sales hit $14bn (w/ -$13.4bn adjustment)! Uh, Opteron sales too

[Ed]

Hypertransport licence is rather cheap i thought? On the order of

http://www.hypertransport.org/

FAQ #3. What does it cost to join the consortium?

The HyperTransport Consortium is based on five membership classes:
Promoter, Contributor, Advisor, Adopter, Academic. Major differences
between membership classes are the type of rights and free services the
member is entitled. Adopter memberships are $5,000 annually, Advisor
and Contributor membership are $15,000 annually, Promoter memberships
are $40,000 annually. Additional membership class information can be
found at the membership benefits information page.

Ed

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hypertransport licence is rather cheap i thought? On the order of
something that even a quite small company (10+ people) could afford?

Yep, it is -- as a matter of fact.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Dean Kent]

***Big News*** Intel's Itanium chips have hit the $14 billion in revenue
mark!! However there was a small one-time over-optimism charge of $13.4bn.
BUT THIS STUFF IS INCREDIBLE, IT'S EXACTLY AS IDC HAD PREDICTED ALL ALONG!!
That's an amazing 5,665 server units, this past quarter!!!

PS- Oh, and btw, if you're interested (and frankly, I can't see why anyone
would be), Opterons sold 60,000 server units, or something or another,
blah-blah-blah.

One of the interesting things about numbers is that people can get
completely lost in them. For example, the numbers published by The
Register show that Opteron systems sold for an average of ~$3000 each,
while the Itanium systems sold for a mere ~$53,000 each. IOW, one Itanium
system is not necessarily equivalent (in either revenue, number of
processors, or market segment) to one Opteron system.

FWIW, there are only about 11,000 z/Series systems (or equivalent) in the
world, yet they run essentially all of the mission critical apps of Fortune
1000 companies. Number of systems sold is not an indication of
failure/success, nor of importance in a market. There are much more
important metrics one might want to focus on to paint a true picture of the
value of a product.

Regards,
Dean

 

[Nick Maclaren]

One of the interesting things about numbers is that people can get
completely lost in them. For example, the numbers published by The
Register show that Opteron systems sold for an average of ~$3000 each,
while the Itanium systems sold for a mere ~$53,000 each. IOW, one Itanium
system is not necessarily equivalent (in either revenue, number of
processors, or market segment) to one Opteron system.

If I recall, the first figure published for the average selling
price of Itanium systems was c. $15,000 - which was the price of
a high-end workstation. The initial buyers bought - surprise,
surprise - workstations for testing and development.

What will be interesting is to see how the average price of the
Opteron systems changes. If it goes up significantly, we have
evidence of more sales in the server and MPP/cluster market; if
it doesn't, then it is stuck in the workstation market.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 

[keith]

If I recall, the first figure published for the average selling
price of Itanium systems was c. $15,000 - which was the price of
a high-end workstation. The initial buyers bought - surprise,
surprise - workstations for testing and development.

And do you suppose that this is happening with Opterons too?

What will be interesting is to see how the average price of the
Opteron systems changes. If it goes up significantly, we have
evidence of more sales in the server and MPP/cluster market; if
it doesn't, then it is stuck in the workstation market.

I'm not sure the average system price matters much here. If the UP or SMP
Opteron (1xx and 2xx) servers/workstations sell tremendously well and
the >4P servers sell tremendously well (for their segment), the average
system price will still be far lower than any Itanic (or Z, for that
matter).

I'm not sure how one compares chip ASP, on one hand, to system price on
the other.

 

[Dean Kent]

And do you suppose that this is happening with Opterons too?

It is my recollection that this is exactly the market that AMD originally
had in mind for Opteron. While many were making comparisons to Itanium
(which AMD skillfully has never denied), all of their marketing material was
about displacing Xeon systems. The relative pricing of the chips should
also be an indication of this.

I'm not sure the average system price matters much here. If the UP or SMP
Opteron (1xx and 2xx) servers/workstations sell tremendously well and
the >4P servers sell tremendously well (for their segment), the average
system price will still be far lower than any Itanic (or Z, for that
matter).

I'm not sure how one compares chip ASP, on one hand, to system price on
the other.

As you know, you can't. Companies such as Stratus will make
fault-tolerant, fully redundant systems selling for hundreds of thousands of
dollars using $1K/$2K Xeons. Thus far, these companies have not used
Opterons. Likely it has nothing at all to do with whether Opterons can or
cannot be used in such systems, but is due to the fact that such systems
take a *long time* to design, build and validate... and that their customers
expect certain attributes, including various name-brand components.

The real point here is that you cannot simply count systems sold across all
market segments, then make some general statement about the relative
success/failure of a component used within a fraction of them. This is not
an apples/apples comparison, and I suspect that many people know this - even
those who report/repeat such numbers. Of course, there is always the
problem of properly identifying each market segment as well as the intended
target of the component. Once you can do that, you have a better chance of
determining what 'success' and 'failure' really means.

On a somewhat related note, it was reported that Bob Evans passed away very
recently. He led the S/360 architecture team, which apparently cost $5B
back in the '60s - at at time when IBMs annual revenues were just North of
$3B. This would be the equivalent of Intel spending multiple tens of
millions of dollars on a new architecture (no, I am not trying to equate
S/360 with Itanium in anything except corporate investment terms). That
one turned out spectacularly successful, and I doubt that Itanium achieve
even a small fraction of that success - but if they can carve out, and hold
onto, a niche in the lucrative high-end space, it may not be as unsuccessful
as many would like it to be (or, it might be - but time will tell).

Regards,
Dean

 

[Nick Maclaren]

|> >
|> > If I recall, the first figure published for the average selling
|> > price of Itanium systems was c. $15,000 - which was the price of
|> > a high-end workstation. The initial buyers bought - surprise,
|> > surprise - workstations for testing and development.
|>
|> And do you suppose that this is happening with Opterons too?

I know that it was, for the period for which we have figures.
Whether it is continuing is another matter.

|> > What will be interesting is to see how the average price of the
|> > Opteron systems changes. If it goes up significantly, we have
|> > evidence of more sales in the server and MPP/cluster market; if
|> > it doesn't, then it is stuck in the workstation market.
|>
|> I'm not sure the average system price matters much here. If the UP or SMP
|> Opteron (1xx and 2xx) servers/workstations sell tremendously well and
|> the >4P servers sell tremendously well (for their segment), the average
|> system price will still be far lower than any Itanic (or Z, for that
|> matter).

Sigh. Yes. That is largely because the Itanic has completely lost
out in the workstation and probably even small server market. As
other people say, that wasn't the intent. It certainly wasn't the
intent that it would be an HP and SGI only chip.

|> I'm not sure how one compares chip ASP, on one hand, to system price on
|> the other.

One doesn't. Or, at least, I don't.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 

[Nick Maclaren]

|>
|> On a somewhat related note, it was reported that Bob Evans passed away very
|> recently. He led the S/360 architecture team, which apparently cost $5B
|> back in the '60s - at at time when IBMs annual revenues were just North of
|> $3B. This would be the equivalent of Intel spending multiple tens of
|> millions of dollars on a new architecture (no, I am not trying to equate
|> S/360 with Itanium in anything except corporate investment terms). That
|> one turned out spectacularly successful, and I doubt that Itanium achieve
|> even a small fraction of that success - but if they can carve out, and hold
|> onto, a niche in the lucrative high-end space, it may not be as unsuccessful
|> as many would like it to be (or, it might be - but time will tell).

I posted that analogy nearly a year back, and I was rhetorically
asked by a Itanic flag waver whether I meant that it would dominate
the whole industry for a decade. I replied, no, that I meant it
would take the company to the brink of bankruptcy (I believe that
IBM was within 6 months of filing) and it be a matter of chance
whether it went over the edge.

[ Note that, as Brooks says, it wasn't the hardware that had the
trouble, but the software. The hardware had its problems, but not
on the same scale. ]

Well, as it happened, the Intel bean-counters and senior executives
had enough sense to refuse to bet the farm on the Itanic (which
was believed NOT to be the case at the time I posted). So Intel
avoided the the crisis that IBM had with the System/360.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.