By Tony Hallett, 20 November 2002 07:25
NEWS But enough about the software and Microsoft. Another factor against the ultra PC form factor may turn out to be Intel's absence. What has the big chip-maker - the hardware vendor par excellence - been up to? (See http://www.silicon.com/a55746 for our look inside the company - or http://www.silicon.com/a54680 to find out about UK chip firm ARM, for that matter.)
In a year that generally saw its fortunes turn up again, its biggest disappointment may have been the launch of its Itanium 2 64-bit server processor into an anaemic high-end market. We called Intel immature over this (http://www.silicon.com/a54405) but predict it'll be successful in the end - it normally is. By November even Dell had signed up to Itanium 2 (http://www.silicon.com/a56459).
Other advances from Intel include strained silicon, putting hyperthreading into mainstream PCs to allow simultaneous juggling of applications and getting flash memory to do more (http://www.silicon.com/a55929), principally to target the communications device market.
As Intel took the wraps off a 3GHz Pentium processor, desktop chip rival AMD kept on talking about the 'megahertz myth' (http://www.silicon.com/a55233). It also vocally put forward future 64-bit offerings for servers and PCs as Itanium challengers, in one case doing so with the help of Guns n Roses guitarist Slash (http://www.silicon.com/a56462).
Sun's UltraSPARC processor moved on too and this hardware company could be found talking about bomb and fireproof servers (http://www.silicon.com/a56112) and challenging IBM mainframes (http://www.silicon.com/a52606). However, its big idea for the future is its N1 computing initiative (http://www.silicon.com/a56064). Boss McNealy may be up against the wall but we bet our mortgages on hearing a lot from him about N1 in 2003.
Several companies came out with sleek 'blade servers', though Sun's decision to do so was marked by its decision to ship them with Linux (http://www.silicon.com/a54958). But then this was also the year when, after user pleas, Sun made Solaris available on Intel chips again. Whatever next?
If 2002 was only marginally better than 2001 for the big vendors, what can we expect of 2003? Gartner analysts aren't predicting a sustained recovery until 2004 (http://www.silicon.com/a56007). Perhaps users are partly to blame. Research from Meta Group shows lax auditing means that around a fifth of all kit goes unaccounted for (http://www.silicon.com/a55320). It's hard to replace something you don't know you have.
Add that to the list of conundrums for hardware sellers in 2003.
From the start of the year, you may also like:
TECHNOLOGIES TIME FORGOT
The Spectrum, BBC Micro, Vic-20, C64, Dragon and more&
http://www.silicon.com/a51276
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