News & announcements

January 1999

A whole month's worth of news

Alpha Processor Inc. Begins Shipment of Third Generation Alpha Microprocessor and Dual Processor Platform

«Alpha Processor, Inc. today announced full production of its third generation Alpha 21264 microprocessors at speeds of 500 MHz and 600MHz. The Alpha 21264 has been shipping in sample quantities to OEM customers since Q4, 1998. The 21264 builds on the company's existing offering of high-performance 64-Bit Alpha microprocessors for the workstation and server markets...

 

Effective today the company also announced that all Alpha Processor motherboard solutions will come bundled with Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect software suites at no charge.»

 

Compaq Workstation Webcast Live!

Introducing the world's fastest workstation, the XP1000; watch this live webcast at 3:00 PM EST / 12:00 PM PST, with speakers from Compaq, Microsoft, ESRI, and PTC.

 

Lift For Digital Technology -- Compaq plans Unix upgrade, new Alpha server; will affirm commitment to OpenVMS

«Compaq this week will introduce an upgrade of Digital Unix, a low-cost midrange Alpha server, and support for Linux on some Alpha systems. It also plans to "formalize" its commitment to the powerful OpenVMS operating system it inherited from Digital Equipment Corp.»

 

Compaq, IBM enhance midrange lines -- Augment servers with Alpha processors, Power3, Linux

«Compaq Computer Corp. and IBM Corp. this week are expected to introduce new servers and workstations.

To leverage speed enhancements to its Alpha processor line, Compaq will unveil new servers and workstations and provide additional Linux support to its Alpha Server line.»

 

Compaq data-storage wares gives VARs an array of choices

«Compaq Computer Corp. has introduced several data-storage products based on its Enterprise Network Storage Architecture (ENSA) initiative, including two new storage arrays.

 

Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop FC-AL versions of the arrays for NT, Solaris, IRIX and HP-UX, as well as Ultra SCSI models for Digital Unix, Open VMS and RS/6000, were released last week. New versions supporting FC-AL for NetWare, SCO and Alpha NT, as well as switched Fibre Channel for Digital Unix, Open VMS and both Intel and Alpha NT, will be available this spring.»

 

Intel Takes RISC -- High-end users' interest could help chipmaker compete with RISC vendors

«When will IT managers who run large customer databases or zero-downtime transaction-processing applications turn to Intel CPUs to do those jobs?

 

In any case, the contest between RISC vendors and Intel is good for users: Competition usually spurs faster development cycles, lower prices, or both. Compaq says it intends to drive Alpha as a 64-bit industry standard, for example. "At the time Intel has McKinley, we're coming out with EV8 with simultaneous threading," says Jesse Lipcon, Compaq's VP of high-performance servers. "If EV8 beats McKinley by a factor of two on single stream, it will beat it by a factor of four on multistream workloads."»

 

Compaq, IBM in talks over copper Alpha chip

«Compaq Computer Corp. is talking in earnest with rival IBM Corp. about forging an alliance under which IBM would manufacture Compaq's copper-based Alpha processors, according to executives...

 

"The one lurking in the background so far has been IBM," said Severson, who was discussing Compaq's Alpha options. "I expect something will pop soon."»

 

Servers ripe for the picking

«The server hardware market is rocking of late with seismic shifts in pricing, processing power, and new product lines.

 

...the current trend places pressure on server vendors to provide more function in order to differentiate themselves from one another.

 

To this end, Compaq, long a dependable Intel warrior, is venturing this week into unfamiliar territory where Intel-powered machines have yet to succeed: 64-bit processing power.

Digital's venerable Alpha Server line, now Compaq Alpha Servers, are the featured items. Compaq is turning loose its high-end GS series this week, powered by the latest Alpha EV6 processor.»

 

Compaq, IBM make major moves on high-end servers

«Trying to soften skepticism about its commitment to the core technologies acquired from Digital, Compaq next week will introduce a speedy 64-bit server fueled by the Alpha chip, and the company is rebranding Digital Unix to reflect its own name...

 

Billed by Compaq as the fastest dual-processor server now available, the DS20 server supports two 500-MHz 21264 Alpha processors. The system also features a new switched-based architecture that provides a CPU-to-memory bandwidth of 5.2GBps over two 256-bit buses.»

 

Dell using Alpha chips in servers

«The Dell Corporation, perhaps the staunchest of Intel's customers, is producing large file servers using the Alpha chip, it has emerged...

A company called Net Appliance is selling the boxes as servers for thin clients. According to Shannon, the company has been buying several thousand Alphas from Dell.»

 

Intel's Merced undercut by Compaq's Alpha

«Alpha partner Samsung is now selling fast processors for as little as $250, it has emerged.

According to confidential documents seen by The Register, .25 micron 533MHz Alphas will ramp to high volume in spring. They currently cost $250/1000.

And when the 800MHz Alpha is released later on this year, it will also be priced at the $250 volume mark. »

 

Alpha pricing could cut Intel's throat

«Information shown to The Register reveals that the Alpha partnership has more aggressive pricing plans for the 64-bit chip than first realised.

Last week we wrote that 21164A 533MHz Alpha CPUs cost $250 in quantity but an informed source has revealed that the price is nearer to $180 when ordered in volume.»

 

Compaq boots 64-bit NT on AlphaServer

«Highly reliable sources said that Compaq has successfully booted 64-bit Windows NT on the forthcoming Compaq AlphaServer DS20.»

 

Cunning AMD-Compaq plan takes shape

«The EV6 system bus in the AMD K7 means both it and Compaq will benefit from the use of its slot architecture.

According to a very reliable source close to Digital in the US, AMD gets an extremely fast bus out of the deal, while in the future, Compaq will be able to use the same motherboards for their products.»

 

Compaq-Digital brings life to 'dead duck' Alpha -- Processor family slated to provide competitive performance

«When Hewlett-Packard Co. Senior Vice President Nick Earle recently touted HP's new terabyte servers, based on the PA-RISC processor, he had little nice to say about Compaq Computer Corp.'s Alpha chip.

"What we've got here," he recently told an audience in London, "is a dead duck." To make his point, he blew into a duck call...

But a close look at the road maps of HP's PA-RISC and Compaq-owned Digital's Alpha show two processors that are expected to be close in performance metrics through 2001.»

Back to Top