Guild Companies

Gateway, the originator of the inexpensive PC in the 1990s, is struggling to get into higher profit enterprise computing, including workstations and servers, to bolster its business as it tries to compete against Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and others. Today, Gateway has announced two new Intel servers, further fleshing out its server product line. The new machines bring Gateway's 1U and 2U product line closer to par with competitive offerings, and have cut-throat prices, too.

The Gateway 955 Server is a rack-mounted server with a 1U form factor that includes a single 1.8 GHz "Prestonia" Pentium 4 Xeon DP processor, expandable to two processors. This base processor only supports a 400 MHz front side bus, but the 955 Server also supports more recent Prestonia processors with faster 533 MHz front side buses and clock speeds as high as 3.06 GHz. The machine comes with 256 MB of PC2100 DDR ECC SDRAM (that's two DIMMs), and has room for six DIMMs at a maximum size of 1 GB each for memory expansion to 6 GB. (Later this year, Gateway will support 12 GB of main memory). The machine comes with a base 36 GB 10K RPM Ultra320 SCSI disk drive and supports up to three drives with maximum capacities of 146 GB each; it has two PCI-X slots. The machine includes a CD-ROM and a floppy drive and dual integrated Gigabit Ethernet ports. The base 955 Server sells for $1,699. A two-way machine using the 3.06 GHz Prestonias and including 6 GB of main memory, three 146 GB disks in a RAID 5 configuration, and a five-user license to Windows 2000 Server costs $10,024.

The second new Gateway server is called the 975 Server. This is a two-way-capable machine as well, but comes in a beefier 2U rack-mounted form factor. The base machine comes with a single 2.4 GHz Prestonia chip with the 533 MHz front side bus. 512 MB of the PC2100 memory (again expandable to 6 GB with 12 GB coming later this year), and a single 36 GB disk drive. The 975 server has room for seven hot-swap disk drives and six PCI-X slots, as well as the same CD-ROM and floppy drives and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports. The 975 Server also includes an integrated dual channel Ultra320 SCSI drive controller (this is not a RAID 5 controller, however.) The base 975 Server sells for $2,199. A machine configured with two 3.06 GHz processors, 6 GB of main memory, seven 146 GB hard drives, a 40 GB DAT tape drive with Veritas tape backup software, a RAID 5 controller, and a Windows 2000 Server license for five users sells for $14,610.

Gateway eventually plans to offer Linux as an option on its servers, but Linux is not available on its Web store configurators at the moment. Gateway offers Linux installation through a special factory installation service, much as rivals Dell, IBM, and HP do for many of their machines that do not explicitly support Linux installation through direct sales channels.

In early March, Gateway added support for the fastest 3.06 GHz Prestonias in it 960 Series and 980 Series of tower servers for commercial customers. These machines are also available in rack-mounted versions in roughly the same price range, but they are not as dense as the new 955 Server and 975 Server machines and they support smaller main memories.