If that is the case, SPARC will represent NO [greater] competition to Intel from now on. Maybe indirectly, from IBM converting SPARC installations to, what is it, "System z"?
IBM likes to showcase specific examples of new customers
coming to z but those are really man bites dog anecdotes.
Even with huge discounts for non-zOS licensed hardware
and targeted bundles of hardware and middleware it is not
generally attractive. Mainframe's share of the server market
has been trending down for decades as z customers bite
the bullet and completely overhaul their business critical
IT infrastructure (mainly to Power or IPF but some take
the risk of going with clusters of x86).
Larry's fat wallet will not make a difference for SPARC at
Sun. Sun itself has lavished huge amounts of money over
many years on an MPU development team described as
1000 strong. That is mainly why Sun had so much problems
with inconsistent profitability after the dot com bust. The
problem is that the Sun MPU design team is disfunctional.
It's had several new flagship designs cancelled outright
after years of work and years more of delays. The business
case to shut them down and rely on Fujitsu MPU engineers.
Taking a 5+ year, multibillion dollar gamble on being able
to totally reboot Sun's SPARC design team would be pretty
gutsy given how diminished SPARC would be in the market
by the time new products could reach customers.
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