What IBM's x86 exit may mean for rivals

By Patrick Thibodeau in Computer World

Computerworld - IBM's reported interest in selling parts of its x86 server business to Lenovo may bring major changes to the global market.

IBM is the third-largest seller of x86 servers by factory revenue, with 15.7% of the global market in 2012, according to IDC. That represents $5.6 billion for a company that earned $104.5 billion in revenue last year.

IBM's share of the x86 server segment has declined over the last several years. In 2010, it had 17.4% of the market and $5.5 billion in revenue.

By divesting at least part of its x86 server line, IBM gains additional investment dollars that it can spend on its higher margin efforts, especially its analytics and business intelligence, putting more pressure on rivals in these areas.

Lenovo, which is on its way to becoming the world's top PC vendor, may gain more than an x86 server line. It may also get, as part of any deal, IBM executive talent and capability to reach North American customers served today by Hewlett-Packard and Dell, said Richard Fichera, an analyst at Forrester.

Read Full Story @ Computer World 

HP Preps Laser-Powered Chip of the Future

Codenamed Corona, this laser-powered contraption would handle 10 trillion floating points operations a second. In other words, if you put just five of them together, you’d approach the speed of today’s supercomputers. The chip’s 256 cores would communicate with each other at an astonishing 20 terabytes per second, and they’d talk to memory at 10 terabytes a second. That means it would run memory-intensive applications about two to six times faster than an equivalent chip made with good, old-fashioned electric wires.
More importantly, Corona would use a lot less power, helping the world’s supercomputers break the vaunted exascale barrier — i.e., deliver a machine that can handle one quintillion (10 to the 18th) floating point operations a second. That’s 100 times faster than today’s fastest supercomputer. “Electronics … cannot scale to the scale that we need for these large systems,” says HP Labs researcher Marco Fiorentino.
This sort of optical chip communication is known as “integrated photonics.” Telecommunications networks and high-speed computer interconnects already use light to send information faster and more efficiently — think “fiber optics” — and now, HP and other research outfits are pushing to use light for communicating between computer computer chips or even between components built into the chips themselves.
Corona is just one of several efforts to build superfast chips that can bust through the exascale barrier, including Intel’s Runnemede, MIT’s Angstrom, NVIDIA’s Echelon, and Sandia’s X-calibur projects. All seek to use integrated photonics in some way, but the technology is the heart of the matter for HP’s 256-core Corona.

More @ Wired

AMD-SeaMicro Deal Shows Strange Server Bedfellows

By Don Clark

Companies that need to catch up to competitors sometimes try what seem like odd ideas. The deal by chip maker Advanced Micro Devices to buy server maker SeaMicro seems to fit the pattern, and it isn’t the only option that was considered.
People familiar with the matter say that AMD–for decades a distant second to Intel in microprocessor chips–also flirted with the possibility of buying Calxeda, another startup developing technology for energy-efficient servers.
Lisa Su, a recent recruit to AMD and senior vice president who led a briefing about the SeaMicro deal Wednesday, didn’t mention Calxeda by name but stressed that her company had examined multiple alternatives.
Karl Freund, Calxeda’s vice president of marketing, declined to comment on any talks with AMD. “We are just heads-down and focused on getting this product out in the marketplace,” he said. “Our plan is to continue to go after this as an independent company.”
SeaMicro, at the same time, made it clear that it had other potential suitors before settling on the $334 million offer from AMD. Andrew Feldman, its chief executive, told reporters that the interest came from customers of its servers, other computer makers and chip makers. “We had many companies excited about what we were doing,” he said.
Behind the maneuvering is a race to cash in as companies stock up on server systems–and find that their bills for electricity are an increasing headache. It’s a big deal for companies like AMD and Intel, which sell chips for servers, and a looming opportunity for ARM Holdings, which licenses chip designs for mobile devices but thinks its power-sipping chips could become very popular in servers, too.

Rest of the article @ Wall Street Journal

HP Paid Intel $690 Million to Keep Itanium Alive - Court Findings | X-bit Labs

In a bid to secure its mission-critical HP-UX platform, Hewlett-Packard has paid Intel Corp. around $690 to keep Itanium microprocessor alive till 2017 and update it in timely manner, court findings reveal.
Back in 2008 the maker of servers paid Intel $440 million in order to keep producing and updating Itanium microprocessors from 2009 to 2014. In 2010, the two companies signed another $250 million deal, which obliged Intel to continue making Itanium central processing units for HP's machines till 2017, according to Wired. Under the terms of the agreements, HP has to pay for chips it gets from Intel, whereas the latter launches Tukwila, Poulson, Kittson and Kittson+ chips in a bid to gradually boost performance of the platform.
Given the fact that Itanium is essentially on life support, it is not surprising that software makers, including Microsoft and Red Hat have already stopped developing software for Itanium. Large makers of servers, Dell and IBM, dropped Itanium back in 2005. In early 2011 Intel discontinued support for Itanium in its C/C++ and Fortran compilers. In fact, Intel has even relocated engineers developing Itanium products onto Xeon-related projects, another signal that the platform will hardly evolve substantially going forward.

More @ X-bit Labs

HP shift on PCs could boost rivals - Computerworld

HP shift on PCs could boost rivals - Computerworld

Computerworld - With Hewlett-Packard (HP) likely spinning off its PC manufacturing business, other major vendors will almost certainly be looking for a way to get a bigger piece of the hardware pie.

HP announced on Thursday that, among other moves, it is may sell its PC manufacturing business. That news rocked the hardware industry since HP is by far the dominant PC maker in the world.

So while HP decides just what to do, PC makers like Dell, Acer and Lenovo should be plotting their next move, say industry analysts.

Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, said HP's shift could easily be great news for other major vendors who want to take advantage of it. After all, companies and consumers may not be so quick to buy HP desktops or laptops if they feel the company or products are in flux.

That could mean more business for the other top vendors.

"Whoever takes over HP's PC business could, if it is successful, emerge in 18 months as very powerful. But, for those 18 months, the others will be able to gain share at HP's cost," said Enderle. "The leader is weakened until the divestiture stabilizes, and there is no certainty it will be successful. This will focus the others on HP's share."

All of these changes come just as the PC market isshifting into a slower pace.

More @ Computer World

Japan answers China's supercomputing surge - Computerworld

Japan answers China's supercomputing surge - Computerworld

Computerworld - A new supercomputer from Japan whose performance passed the 8 petaflop milestone ended China's brief period atop the list of the world's fastest supercomputers.

The Japanese system also set another all-time Top 500 record -- a 10 megawatt power rating while running the Linpack test used to determine system performance. Despite the significant power consumption, the K Computer achieved "extraordinarily high computing efficiency," said RIKEN and Fujitsu, in a statement.

The new Top 500 leader, the K Computer housed at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, runs 68,544, eight-core Sparc chips made by Japan-based Fujitsu. The system is expected to eventually run some 80,000 of the Sparc processors.

China's move to head the the Top500.org list late last year underscored the continuing global competition to build the world's most powerful computer systems.

The Chinese Tianhe-1A supercomputer, took the number one position last November with a performance of 2.57 petaflops.

In speeches after that, President Barack Obamareferenced China's accomplishment.

Supercomputer developers are keenly aware that they will need huge gains in power efficiency to reach supercomputing's next big goal -- building an exascale class system (1,000 time more powerful than a petascale system) by 2018.

For more: Computer World

Apple now No. 1 in flash memory consumption - Computerworld

Computerworld - Apple has surpassed HP and all other equipment manufacturers to become the world's largest consumer of semiconductor technology, largely because of the popularity of its mobile devices.

According to market research firm IHS iSuppli, in 2010, Apple bought $17.5 billion worth of semiconductors, an increase of 79.6% from the $9.7 billion it spent in 2009.

"Apple's surge to leadership in semiconductor spending in 2010 was driven by the overwhelming success of its wireless products, namely the iPhone and theiPad," said iSuppli analyst Wenlie Ye. "These products consume enormous quantities of NAND flash memory, which is also found in the Apple iPod. Because of this, Apple in 2010 was the world's No. 1 purchaser of NAND flash."

While Apple is also in the top five manufacturers that purchase microprocessors, it was NAND flash that propelled it into the top spot overall, Ye said. "For Apple, which right now spends 60% of its semiconductor purchasing budget on wireless products, processors take the passenger seat when compared to NAND flash. "

In 2010, HP lead the market in microprocessor purchases with $5.3 billion spent, followed by Dell with $4.2 billion and Apple with $2.5 billion.

for more: Apple now No. 1 in flash memory consumption - Computerworld