Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[aleph0]

.."and Sun would be idiotic in their hubris not to offer both Intel and AMD, to at least let their customers make the choice."..

Remember Apple ?
They lived on the laurels of the (good) MC68xxx family until X86 chips were much faster. Many Apple customers I knew at the time moved to X86 because they wanted a faster photoshop ( offset-printing companies etc. ).
Apple was dying a death ( like Sun Sparc ) until IBM rescued them with the PPC chip. Apple quickly became a new fresh Apple again.

I see a similar thing happening with Sun.
Apple had the best OS for the time, but the hardware was getting old.
Sun's has THE software & expertise in the server market - which is why many Sun customers still haven't moved from Sparc "yet" !
I consider that there are some parallels between AMD's AMD64+HTT architectural lead over Intel's somewhat ageing architecture to Apple's jump from MC68xxx to PPC.

I think Sun will make very good mileage by going AMD64. ...and I think there's a good chance that AMD could keep or increase this design-lead over Intel in the next 3-5 years.

Sun's choosing of AMD is making a BIG statement to the business world : Flying the AMD64 flag at it's highest .
This should not be underestimated IMO !