Andy Patrizio

AMD next week will announce its latest effort to add new instructions to the x86 architecture, although just what is a bit of a mystery. A company spokesperson would only acknowledge that there will be news surrounding enhancements to the x86 instruction set on August 30, but that was all. AMD  has added its own […]

Reporter’s Notebook: There I was this week, stuck in the back of the Stanford University Memorial Union auditorium at the Hot Chips conference, when I received an e-mail informing me that Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks had decided to go exclusively with the HD DVD camp. I could have screamed. Why would they do this given […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel has announced the latest generation of its vPro chipset for business computers, with enhancements across its feature sets, particularly in the areas of virtualization. Systems that incorporate the new chipset should be available this coming week from major desktop computer vendors. vPro is a support technology for software and hardware inventory […]

The Storm worm tore through the Internet earlier this year like Hurricane Dean tore through the Caribbean. But while Dean is already dissipating, the Storm virus is still around, still causing trouble and stronger than ever six months later. Since it first appeared early this year, Storm has evolved and mutated faster than staph infections […]

IDC has released its Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker for the second quarter 2007, and despite the talk of a sales slowdown, the top server vendors are all doing well. Yes, even Sun and Dell were up. Revenue in the second quarter for the worldwide server market grew 6.3 percent over 2006 figures to $13.1 billion, […]

AMD  on Wednesday announced the departure of Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Henri Richard, effective next month. No successor has been named yet. The sales and marketing organizations will report to the office of the CEO until a successor is named. In announcing the departure, Richard hinted at a new direction but gave no details. […]

STANFORD, Calif. — After a string of engineering talks, the annual Hot Chips conference took a turn toward Washington as former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Reed Hundt took the stage for the afternoon keynote. At first, it was a stand-up routine, with Hundt making self-deprecating jokes and taking a few shots at Washington. “It […]

Sun Microsystems is practicing what it preaches, using itself as a primary example of server consolidation and eco-friendly datacenter management policies. The company on Tuesday announced The Eco Innovation Initiative, an extension to its Eco Responsibility Initiative from 2005. Of course, chief information officer Bob Worrall admits Sun didn’t set out to be eco-friendly as […]

STANFORD, Calif. — Hot Chips is an appropriate term for a conference on future trends in microprocessors. On a rare hot day here in Memorial Hall on the campus of Stanford University, even the air conditioners fail to counterbalance the heat from notebooks that adorn practically every lap in the auditorium. Inside, the talk among […]

An MIT-inspired startup will introduce a new multi-core chip today at the annual Hot Chips conference at Stanford University. The TILE64 boasts a “clean sheet” design, unencumbered by any legacy compatibility concerns, that Tilera says will provide a huge leap in multithreaded performance. Tilera was founded in 2004 to bring to market the multi-core processor […]

The alliance between IBM and Sun drew a rather short but succinct response from HP: Welcome to the party. While IBM is getting into the game to sell Solaris on its x86 hardware, HP has been selling x86 servers for running Solaris for more than a decade. And it has enjoyed a decent business in […]

In yet another sign the Scott McNealy era is over, Sun Microsystems has partnered with IBM to optimize and support Solaris on IBM’s x86 System x and BladeCenter servers. As part of the agreement, Sun  and IBM  will invest in testing and system qualification. Optimized drivers for Solaris on System x machines will be available […]