Sun To Find Competition in New Intel Rack Units

Intel Corp. is positioning its new line of telecom
server processors and rack units as an underdog against the commanding
presence Sun Microsystems Inc., holds in the market.

To do so, engineers at the popular microchip manufacturer are betting
carriers and service providers want an option to Sun’s proprietary
operating system (OS) and server setup.

Shantanu Gupta, Intel director of marketing for telecom platforms, said
Intel’s new server line gives customers the flexibility they need to build
their own networks, using their own tools.

Intel’s 2U rack units come with two Intel Pentium III chips on a
high-density form factor motherboard; the customer installs the hard drive,
OS and memory on their own. Intel plans on putting its line of Xeon and
Itanium processors in upcoming rack units, along with shrinking the units
down to 1U (1.75 inches) size, giving companies more room in their
collocation space.

All rack units will conform to the Network Equipment Building Specification
(NEBS) and European Telecom Standards Institute’s (ETSI) highest safety
standards. That means each would be capable of withstanding the effects of
catastrophes like an earthquake. Intel technicians even set fire to their
little servers and demonstrated they could put themselves out, not release
harmful toxins in the air and send an alarm out to network technicians in
another area of the building.

By letting carriers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) integrate
their own network system and OS, Intel gives customers the best reason to
go with them over Sun’s own proprietary OS (Solaris) and server setup.

“The differentiation really comes in at the integration level, based on
what I/O cards and what solution they are building and by the services that
OEM offers and represents to the end customer,” Gupta said.

Rack units manufactured by companies like Sun, and now chipmaker Intel, are
used by carriers and other providers to perform a variety of functions at a
central office. Softswitches allow telephone companies to provide voice of
Internet (VoIP), or Internet phone calls, while others varieties of rack
units allow companies to offer virtual private networking (VPN) business
services to corporations.

Mike Fister, Intel enterprise platforms group vice president and general
manager, and other Intel technicians refer to these rack units as “building
blocks” that let carriers grow their business in their own fashion, the
keystone to Intel’s rack unit methodology.

“Intel’s world-class building block products and open computing model offer
telecom and service provider customers lower costs, greater investment
protection and an opportunity to deliver services and innovations faster,”
he said. “Unlike traditional RISC-based platforms, Intel-based solutions
provide the flexibility,
choice, raw performance and scalability to address the needs of the
telecommunications market.”

Intel officials say their product’s technology is already a generation
ahead of Sun’s current product line. Following Moore’s Law, officials
said, the new server processors are both faster and less expensive to
manufacture, making it an easy choice over the competition.

“Sun cannot match that,” Gupta said.

That’s something Intel executives hope the telecom industry will be saying
down the road, after getting a chance to use the new rack units. While
Gupta said several companies have already signed contracts with them, they
wouldn’t be announced until the first quarter of 2002.

Intel’s goal?

“Our goal is to have a meaningful presence a year from now,” Gupta said.

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