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Sun Blasts Intel's Itanium
August 8, 2002
By Ken Popovich

Sun Microsystems Inc. delivered a scorching attack on Intel Corp.'s 64-bit Itanium processor to an audience of analysts and reporters Wednesday, deriding the chip's design and lambasting it as the "most expensive disaster in the history of high tech."

The unusually harsh rhetoric from Sun executives marks the company's counterassault against Intel's recent promotional efforts touting the 1GHz Itanium 2 http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,362187,00.asp, released last month, as a faster and cheaper alternative to Sun's UltraSparc-based systems.

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And while Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., is a relative newcomer in the 64-bit market, Itanium has the backing of HP, which co-developed the chip and has announced plans to migrate all of its high-end servers to it.

One day after Sun unveiled its fastest processor yet, a 1.05GHz UltraSparc III http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,439446,00.asp , company executives used a conference call with analyst and reporters to fire back at Intel, which has heavily promoted Itanium 2 by touting its price/performance advantages over Sun's UltraSparc III.

Shahin Kahn, Sun's vice president of computing systems, led the assault, mocking Itanium as a "seriously bad idea" and predicting it'll eventually be viewed as the "most expensive disaster in the history of high tech," an apparent reference to the more than $1 billion Intel is speculated to have invested in the chip.

Kahn appeared to express frustration over just such thinking when one questioner asked whether Itanium's new architecture, known as Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computer (EPIC), is superior to Sun's older UltraSparc design.

Kahn fired back that EPIC was not really new, just a variation on a old architecture known as VLIW (very long instruction word), which was first marketed in computer processors in the late '70s by Multiflow Computer Inc., a company that has since gone out of business. In essence, EPIC is based on a design that industry leaders had long since rejected.

"If EPIC was announced by anybody other than Intel, we wouldn't even be talking about it," he said. "It's only the fact that Intel has such great credibility on 32-bit computing it is giving them a shot at even making that case."

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However, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel's main rival in the PC processor market, has announced plans to introduce X86 64-bit processors starting late this year with a desktop version code-named Clawhammer, followed by a version designed for servers, called Opteron, in the first half of next year.

Sun executives even endorsed AMD's approach.

"We all agree that AMD has taken a much better approach entering the 64-bit space by extending that x86 architecture and maintaining that ISV (independent software vendors) community that's out there," said Susan Kunz, director of marketing and business development for Sun's Processor and Network Products Group, during Wednesday's call.

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"What Itanium brings to the high-scalability, 'big iron' market is something customers haven't seen before, which is a choice of operating systems, a choice of platforms and a choice of systems," said Kirkos, highlighting Itanium's availability from competing vendors and ability to run varying operating systems. By contrast, UltraSparc servers are only available from Sun and can only utilize the company's proprietary Solaris OS.

Aside from attacking Itanium's perceived flaws, Sun's Kahn said the arrival of Intel's new chip amid one of the worst business climates ever will assure its failure.

"Of all the years you could pick to ask customers to go to a new system, new architecture, new binary platforms, and go through the pains and cost of migration, this would be a really bad year, and that's exactly the year they choose to announce it," Kahn said.

"I'd bet 20 bucks that Sparc will outlive EPIC over the next 10 years," Khan said.

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"The cost of switching has to be factored in on any major procurement," he said. "So for customers already using Sun Solaris-based systems, there's almost no way they can make the Itanium systems attractive enough. … But for those rolling out new systems or starting with a blank slate, I'm sure they'll take into consideration that Itanium systems cost 20 to 30 percent less than Sun's."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,449166,00.asp

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