But Wait, There's More

AMD to Launch Dual-Core Opterons on April 21

Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices is getting ready to take the workstation and server processing market up another notch as it plans to launch its dual-core Opteron processors on the second birthday for the original "ClawHammer" and "SledgeHammer" 64-bit Opteron processors. It's hard to believe that two years have passed since the Opterons were first launched. AMD put dual-core processors firmly on the Athlon-64 and Opteron roadmaps last June, and has been waiting for its 90 nanometer SOI/low-k process used in Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany, to mature before rolling them out. At that time, AMD announced that it would deliver the dual-core Opterons in mid-2005, with dual-core Athlon-64s available in the second half of 2005. It is unclear right now if the dual-core Opteron launch on April 21 in New York City means that AMD is able to ship these chips earlier than expected.

The so-called SledgeHammer-III processors, which are expected to start shipping in mid-2005 and ramp up through the second half of that year, are the dual-core AMD chips. These third generation Opterons go by the code names of "Denmark" (100 Series), "Italy" (200 Series), and "Egypt" (800 Series). On the desktop, the "Toledo" chip is the dual-core variant of the Athlon-64 FX chip. As far as anyone knows, these dual-core Opterons will plug right into the same sockets as single-core Opterons do today, which is a great and simple performance upgrade.

Sun to Raise the Curtain on "Galaxy" Opteron Servers on April 21?

Server maker Sun Microsystems is expected to be on hand at the big AMD Opteron shindig in New York City on April 21, and tongues are a-wagging that this might finally be when Sun raises the curtain on the "Galaxy" line of Operton-based servers that it has had in development for almost two years. But, Sun could hold its fire and simply announce that its current two-way Sun Fire V20z and four-way V40z servers now support the dual-core Opterons.

Earlier this year (see "Sun, AMD Talk Up the Opteron Future,") John Fowler, general manager of Sun's Network Systems Group, which has the job of making and selling X86-based servers, said that the Galaxy line of Opteron machines, being created by Sun founder Andy Bechtolsheim, would have initial shipments later this year and rolling out into early 2006. That didn't sound so much like Sun was ready to launch in April when Fowler said that back at LinuxWorld in February. But, Sun could launch a little ahead of volume shipments, or just raise the curtain a little on Galaxy while peddling the dual-core Opterons in the existing Sun Fire machines.

All I know for sure is that Sun and AMD just sent me a box of goodies by UPS as I was writing that last paragraph--I am not kidding, this was truly an example of synchronicity--that has a box of Bigelow orange and spice herbal tea, a tube of Lay's Stax salt and vinegar chips, a two-pack of Reese's peanut butter cups, a pack of Doublemint gum, and a pack of Kraft chocolate and vanilla pudding. I did not get a scale model of a Galaxy-class starship called Enterprise. You figure it out.

Sun Enhances StorEdge 6920 Disk Arrays

Sun Microsystems has made some minor tweaks to its StorEdge 6920 disk arrays that will be available on June 31. The next-generation array, which Sun gets from partner Hitachi and slaps its brand on, is being enhanced with a new feature called the StorEdge Pool Manager, which allows storage pools to be virtualized within the array. The StorEdge Data Replicator is used to replicate vital data sets both within a single array and to remote 6920s attached to hot-backup systems to provide for disaster recovery. The array now also supports a feature called StorEdge data mirror, which allows popular data sets to be copied and then accessed by multiple applications side by side. This eliminates some big bottlenecks in the interaction between servers and storage arrays. With these tweaks, Sun's implementation of the TagmaStore Hitachi arrays draws more or less level with Hewlett-Packard's implementation, and is competitive with similar arrays from EMC and IBM.

LiveVault Ships InControl Remote Backup on Unix, Linux

LiveVault, a maker of disk-based online backup software for servers, announced this week that it has ported its Windows-based InControl software for backing up remote offices to Unix and Linux servers. InControl was launched in February, and initially was only available for Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows Storage Server, and the Windows 2000-based Server Appliance Kit. Now, LiveVault has extended InControl to Red Hat's Linux and Sun Microsystems' Solaris platforms. It seems likely that support for IBM's AIX and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX Unix variants is also in the works.

Azul Systems Taps IBM to Support Java Engines

Azul Systems, the maker of network-attached processing appliances that burst onto the scene last fall, has announced that it has tapped IBM Global Services to deliver service and tech support for its appliances. IBM is only being given the contract to support North America. Azul is expected to launch its appliances--if you can call an SMP server with up to 384 processors and 256 GB of main memory an appliance--on April 18. (See "Azul's Network-Attached Processing to Shake Up Server Market" for more details on the Azul concepts. It's a pretty cool box.)

Gartner Says Midrange Companies Are Gun Shy About IT Investments

The consultants at Gartner are hosting their annual Midsize Enterprise Summit in New Orleans next week, and they have released a sneak peek of some of the findings they plan to divulge at the event. According to Gartner's research, only about a third of the IT spending in midrange businesses is involved in directly improving business performance, while the remaining two thirds is spent on infrastructure (servers, storage, and networks) or basic utility applications (such as email, payroll, and accounting).

The effect of the concentration of IT budgets on basic infrastructure is that business managers, who never get a big budget to do innovative IT projects that might push new revenues, think of IT as a cost of doing business, a basic building block like people and buildings. "Many midsize business executives have become disenchanted with technology solutions that they do not perceive to deliver business value," said James Browning, research vice president at Gartner who will be presenting at the Midsize Enterprise Summit. "This has led to low credibility in many cases, which carries a high price for IT departments--pressure on budgets and lack of resource commitments in an IT environment of scarcity."

No kidding. Gartner's solution to the problem? The same thing we have heard for years: IT managers have to better communicate the value that they can bring to the business, and they have to learn to speak the language of business, not technology.

IBM Takes High Road, Starts Expensing Stock Options

IBM has broken ranks with many of the powerhouses in the high technology industry and has made the wise decision to start expensing its stock options. For a long time, the stock compensation that companies like IBM give to employees-- mostly top brass--have been hidden and, equally importantly, pumped up by stock buybacks. Many critics have argued that this kind of compensation should be on the books. No one would argue that coming up with valuations of stock options and grants is easy, which is probably why companies should stop giving options on stock and just give employees actual stock that has a definitive price at the moment it goes from the company's hands into those of its employees.

Kudos to Big Blue for taking a 55 cent hit to earnings for 2005 and for backcasting the stock compensation expenses so that later this month we can all see what IBM's costs for buying and giving away its stock really have been for the past couple of years.