devices

Unconvinced that new server introductions have changed Sun Microsystems fortunes thus far, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi has downgraded the software and server maker from market-perform to underperform. He also lowered the company's stock target price from $4.20 per share to $4.

"While Galaxy/Opteron products continue to do well, they represent less than 5 percent of revenues; Niagara offerings are facing a longer adoption cycle, given their uniqueness, requirement for Solaris 10 and lack of Linux support, and we see no material impact from them for at least two more quarters, and ultimately wonder if … Read more

When Sun launched OpenSolaris, its open-source version of the Solaris operating system, it unleashed a gaggle of bloggers to give tours of the software project. Now that Sun launched its T2000 server, based on the 72-watt UltraSparc T1 "Niagara" processor, hardware specialists are getting a turn.

Dennis Sheahan pointed out that Sun switched the T2000 server from using 550-watt power supplies to 450-watt models after discovering even a full load wouldn't require that much electricity. The 450-watt power supplies are more efficient, consuming less power when running in the T2000's usual 340-watt range, he said.

Sheahan … Read more

The anticipation is already building for January's MacWorld Expo, when Apple watchers are predicting the introduction of both a new, even smaller iPod Shuffle and an Intel-ready iBook.

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu has heard the new Shuffle will be smaller than a stick of gum and could come in multiple colors, including black. The price points would be $99 and $129 with storage capacities similar to current models.

"We believe this could help offset seasonal weakness in the March quarter similar to last year when iPod Shuffle was introduced," he wrote in a report dated … Read more

Intel has caught up to rival Advanced Micro Devices with its dual-core chips for dual-processor and four-processor servers. But with the chips, Intel still lags AMD in one important domain: power consumption.

Intel recommends server maker design power and cooling around a chip's "thermal design power." TDP measures the power needed to run conventional software at full tilt and is generally about 90 percent of the maximum power that the chip could conceivably require.

Intel argues that its dual-core chips, code-named Paxville and released in October, can be dropped into the same server designs as their single-core … Read more

Sun Microsystems executives last week were eager to talk about the early arrival of servers using the company's "Niagara" processor, and now it appears that launch could come as soon as Monday.

Niagara is the spearhead of Sun's effort to reinvigorate its Sparc processor family, which after delays and lackluster performance has lost popularity to IBM's Power family and to x86 processors such as Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron. Niagara has eight separate processing cores, each able to handle four instruction sequences called threads.

During a conference call last week about Sun's quarterly financial results, … Read more

OpenSolaris, the effort by Sun Microsystems and others to make the Solaris version of Unix into an open-source operating system, has started branching into the mobile computing domain. That's a notable step given that Solaris is generally designed for much more powerful--and stationary--servers.

The OpenSolaris Laptop Community Web site was launched earlier this month. It features support for Atheros' 802.11b/g wireless networking chip and said that drivers for Intel's wireless chips is "being evaluated." (Intel contributed open-source wireless networking drivers to Linux under General Public License, but Solaris is governed by a different license, … Read more

There's a long history of hiring funny people such as John Cleese or Douglas Adams to spice up technology conferences that otherwise are pretty heavy going. Intel took its turn Monday, luring actor, comedian, director and author Carl Reiner to the stage for the launch of its first dual-core Xeon processor, code-named Paxville.

It wasn't a random selection. Reiner directed "The Man With Two Brains," a comedy in which Steve Martin plays brain surgeon Michael Hfuhruhurr. And the new dual-core Xeon, with two processing engines on a single slice of silicon, is in a sense a … Read more

Joe Osha, Merrill Lynch's semiconductor analyst, upgraded his Intel rating to "buy" Wednesday but downgraded Advanced Micro Devices to "neutral."

"Excess manufacturing capacity and competitive pressure from AMD are challenges for Intel," Osha said in a report Wednesday, but "we think the stock price has fully reflected our concerns."

AMD's stock, meanwhile, has risen near Merrill Lynch's target price of $25 per share. "The company continues to take market share in server processors, but is not making any more headway in the notebook or desktop processor markets than … Read more

Sun Microsystems programmers have successfully booted more than one instance of the company's Solaris operating system on a server using the Xen virtualization software, which makes it possible to run multiple operating systems on the same computer. Sun engineer Tim Marsland said in his blog on Thursday that Sun accomplished the feat using Solaris on a server with dual Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices.

"We still emit loads of debugging noise," Marsland said, "but it all works pretty well."

Xen is most widely used with Linux, but it also works with the open-source NetBSD … Read more