IBM's x440 faces market perils

RUMBLINGS ON USENET boards suggest that IBM's x440 server could enter a software Bermuda Triangle because of its interesting design.

The server uses a proprietary build of the Windows hardware abstraction layer (HAL), the posts suggest, but that could mean it faces an upgrade and licensing nightmare.

Corporate customers who may well have separate deals with Microsoft may have to abandon their pricing deals as IBM continues to develop its own versions to support the box.

And patches and bug fixes, such as the soon to be released SP1, could also cause something of a headache.

IBM uses Summit NUMA architecture and that means the servers scale from four to eight ways with only a 67 per cent boost, other posts suggest.

But "traditional" symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) architectures manage about an 80% scale.

Still, Big Blue has the edge on its competitors with the current server architecture although Intel is looking on in a mixture of awe and despair.

You see, IBM's x440 can run two Prestonias in each Numa block, and four in the same box.

Prestonia Xeon chips are very much cheaper than other processors in the Intel family, while the large cache Gallatin chips due early on next year will be fantastically more expensive.

Is it a four way SMP box though? It's really neither a candle for an angel nor a poker for the devil, because of its particular bridging architecture.

Still, it is out. And we believe it is "hotcaking", to use an expression beloved of Intel's server supremo, Mike Fister. µ

IBM's x440 box