Intel Corp (INTC)

[Wouter Tinus]

The point is not how big the change is, but how and where it's been made. If my theory is correct, then it's not custom silicon, but at best custom firmware. Most likely it's even less than that. I think we might be talking about some optimized settings that any other OEM could configure as well (should it fit their usage profile).

Intel has done a lot of work with Oracle to optimize their software and likely to find all the optimal settings, but I doubt they actually went through the effort to create a piece silicon as complex as a Xeon EX especially for one customer.

Hence these parts might be "made for Oracle" only in the same sense that the ARM microcontroller in the Amazon Kindle is "made for John Doe" because his username is pre-loaded on the device.