The battle between Sun Microsystems and IBM looks set to escalate
with the release of Sun's mainframe-style product codenamed
StarCat, quickly followed by IBM's new Regatta server, according to
industry sources.
On Friday, Sun announced the 26 September launch of its "New Star
of the Data Centre", which will take place in New York. Ed Zander,
president and chief operating officer at Sun, will preside.
The "new star" is likely to be a high-end Unix server codenamed
StarCat, which industry analysts have been expecting to appear in
September. The server should take advantage of UltraSPARC III
processors. Sun has said it will have 900MHz versions of the
UltraSPARC III in workstations some time this quarter, after which
it will push the product into its higher-end hardware as
well.
IBM will counter Sun with its Regatta system set for release on 2
October, according to sources. IBM will also boost its chip
technology, debuting the Power4 processor in 32-way Regatta
systems. IBM began circulating a James Bond-style Web movie on
Friday to help spur interest in the soon-to-be-released hardware.
Users can view the movie at:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/projectregatta/aix5l/index.html?c=pSeries&n=regatta_callouts_pseries&t=ad#.
Sun and IBM are perhaps the fiercest rivals in the high-end server
game, with both vendors constantly slinging competitive barbs at
each other.
Both companies have begun pushing high-end features further down
their product lines, giving users more power and stability on
lower-priced hardware. Sun began offering a sub-$1,000 (£687)
workstation earlier this year and plans to spread the UltraSPARC
III processors across its product line.
Similarly, IBM has brought many mainframe computing features to its
high-end servers, offering users software designed to help with
diagnostic functions and automatic repair tasks. The company will
also allow users to create both Linux and Unix partitions on
Regatta systems via its AIX 5L operating system.