Sun rumoured to use Intel X86 chips

RUNNING AROUND CES, there was a persistent rumour that Sun would jump ship and make Woodcrest/Clovertown boxes in Q1. Now a second analyst has come forward to say the same thing, so there's one of two things happening, Sun is jumping ship, or they are both talking to the same guy.

Let's assume Sun is going to Intel, that would signal a shift, but how big a shift? Sun is in bed with AMD pretty deeply at this point, the technical roots go farther than a usual customer/supplier relationship. Sun also put a lot of time and effort into making AMD boxes that are quite unique, the X4500 is a good example of this.

Sun has also been listening to its customers quite a bit lately, and this has all the hallmarks of 'they wanted so we did' engineering. Sun, both in private and public, has never said they wouldn't do an Intel box, so this isn't exactly a conversion of epic proportions. If I had to place money, I would say that Sun will be rebadging a generic server to sell to clients that want them.

If it does well, I can see them building a unique box in the future, but not at the moment. Then again, this could just be a rumour. µ