Intel Corp's rivalry with startup Transmeta Corp and Dell Computer Corp's battle with Compaq Computer Corp are likely to intensify with the emergence of small servers that consume less power, analysts said.
The new machines, called ultradense or blade servers, can take up less than a quarter of the space of today's servers. Texas startup RLX Technologies Inc yesterday began selling its version and said International Business Machines Corp will resell the machines. Compaq on Monday said it will produce a similar server in the second half, and Dell says it, too, will compete.
The servers can make it cheaper for Internet service providers to run Web sites and related programs.
"Everyone sees an opportunity," said Mark Melenovsky of market researcher IDC. "By the second half, we'll see at least eight or 10 vendors offering server blade products." He and other analysts caution that the servers aren't made for all corporate needs, that prices are likely to fall and that relatively few industry benchmark tests have been run to test reliability.
Server computers manage common files and functions on networks and typically have dedicated tasks, like delivering Web pages.
Blade servers typically stack multiple boards, each representing a single server, inside a chassis that houses a common power supply, cooling fans and cables. RLX, for example, says its product will have as many as 336 server boards in a rack that typically would hold 42 servers in today's data centers. The server is based on Transmeta chips originally made to run cooler and save battery power in laptop computers.
Each RLX server board will draw 15 watts of power, compared with 70 to 80 watts for current rack-mounted servers, the company said. RLX, based in The Woodlands, Texas, also said each rack of its servers would deliver four times as many Web pages a second as a conventional rack because there are more servers in each rack.
Armonk, New York-based IBM, the largest computer maker, will resell the RLX machines to gain a "time-to-market" advantage, said David Turek, head of Linux emerging technologies in IBM's server group. The RLX servers will run the free Linux operating system as well as systems from Microsoft Corp.
IBM took an undisclosed equity stake in RLX, is selling the company disk drives for the servers, is the contract manufacturer for Transmeta's chip and will provide financing for the new server through its Global Financing arm.
IBM is likely to produce its own version of blade servers in addition to reselling RLX's, Illuminata analyst Eunice said.
Houston-based Compaq, the largest personal-computer maker and Dell's longtime rival, said it will use Intel's so-called ultra low-voltage processors, code named Tualatin, in its coming QuickBlade servers. Dell, based in Austin, Texas, is developing similar products, said spokesman Bruce Anderson. He declined to say when they would be available.
Intel and Transmeta, both based in Santa Clara, California, already are competing fiercely to sell chips for low-power laptop computers. Transmeta's Crusoe chip has customers among some Japanese computer makers, including Toshiba Corp and Sony Corp, and is hoping to land a US-based PC maker.
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