Everhart, Glenn
From:	Terry C. Shannon [shannon@world.std.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, September 01, 1998 8:43 AM
To:	Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject:	Re: EV6 Workstation Delay; SKD's take at http://www.acersoft.com
Rob Young wrote:
> 
> In article <87ww7p3is0.fsf@mihalis.ix.netcom.com>, Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> > hai@fc.hp.com (Hai Vo-Ba) writes:
> >
> >>
> >>   According to Charlie Matco then EV6 is about 3 years late, n'est ce pas?
> >
> > Anyone heard of any UltraVapor3 ship dates? Where's that Sun chappie
> > to crow about the silicon they must surely be shipping now given the
> > ETA of "summer" earlier this year?
> 
>         Andrew?  He'll be around.  Give him credit... he is an
>         energetic fellow... Speaking of slippage... it is always
>         neat the way Sun gets good press in the light of bad news.
> 
>         Here is another example:
> 
> http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,25900,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh
> 
>         Sun sheds light on chip path
> 
>         [1.5 GHz and .10 micron by 2002 is the good news]
> 
>         Buried in there is the bad news:
> 
>                  "Sun, of course, hasn't been immune from
>                  development problems itself. The first samples of
>                  the UltraSparc III, which will run at 600 MHz,
>                  have been delayed from late summer until the end
>                  of the year or the beginning of 1999, several
>                  sources at Sun have said. As a result of the delay,
>                  servers and workstations based around the
>                  products won't be available until the fall of 1999."
>                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
>         And as you point out it was at the end of April we read:
> 
> http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?EET19980427S0007
> 
> "However, Sun's most critical attempt to beat back the Intel tide revolves
> around workstations now in development based on its Ultrasparc III processor,
> which will sample this summer, reportedly in speed grades of 600 MHz. (The
> workstations themselves aren't expected to be announced until late this year.)"
> 
>         Wonderful ploys on their part.  Talk up futures in light of
>         current bad news.  They have historically gotten tremendous mileage
>         out of that technique.  Their marketing of weak SuperSparc
>         futures when Alpha first shipped was a great piece of work, totally
>         robbing any Alpha bounce.  I cringe yet today remember reading
>         the trade press of that timeframe.
> 
>         Digital never bowed so low and suffered from it.  Remember, it is
>         the pointy hairs that read and are influenced by well positioned
>         NewsMarketing hyperbole.
> 
>         This time it won't work.  Eventually, .25 21264 workstations will
>         show up en masse (en masse being relative for Alpha workstations...
>         much greater numbers than before) and given the 9-12 month lead
>         on UltraSparc III, the window of opportunity is going to kill them
>         this time given the fact that NT + .25 21264 will be a low-end and
>         high-end Sun workstation killer.   Watch.
> 
>                                 Rob

This is largely dependent upon the marketing, pricing, and positioning 
efforts of Alpha Processor, Inc. (Alpha chip itself) and Compaq
(Compaq's Digital UNIX).

To give credit where credit is due, UltraSparc III isn't **that** late.
At the Sun Analyst's Briefing on 31 January 1998, Scott Mcnealy said the
chip would be **sampling** by year's end. To me, the statement implied
that products wouldn't be shipping until, say, mid-1999.

As for the Monet problem, it's all in the card edge connector. Some
supplier is gonna get taken to the woodshed (or to Singapore) for a
meeting with that old soldier Corporal Punishment.

The 21264 itself is just fine and dandy. Still, the sooner it shows up
in shipping products (low-end and midrange EV6 servers are out and about
at field test sites and have been for some time now), the sooner the
comments from the peanut gallery will be muffled.

Terry Shannon