Re: I am not sure what you believe to be the "greater platform integration" that Intel will offer in the next 3 years -- while changing the basic design of Xeon -- but I think Sun will want to keep its future in its own hands (i.e. Sun will design its servers based on the components it deems best). If Xeon is a superior product, it will be offered, otherwise including Intel branded chipsets or motherboards is just so much fluff.
Just like the other OEMs, Sun will eventually figure out that duplicating an R&D effort is a money losing prospect when Intel is willing to do it instead. Over time, with so many adjacent groups and a lot larger R&D budget, Intel will design better solutions than any of the OEMs are willing to spend to compete. If Sun is the last man standing with their own hand-made designs, they will lose the pricing battle (unless they've already lost it, though that's debatable). The point is that Sun only has so much R&D to put behind system designs. If Intel is willing to do the uni-socket and dual-socket markets (and probably the 4-socket markets, too), then why duplicate the effort?
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