Phil (phdny@mac.com) on 2/6/09 wrote:
---------------------------
>David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 2/5/09 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>Paul (no@thanks.com) on 2/5/09 wrote:
>>---------------------------
>>>Temp (not@this.time) on 2/5/09 wrote:
>>>---------------------------
>>>>"Itanium sales are roughly comparable to Xeon MP volumes." could mean so many things.
>>>>One could be comparing CPU unit sales, CPU dollars sales (before or after rebates),
>>>>or even server sales based on those CPU product lines. Roughly comparable could
>>>>means anything from being equal, to being on the same order of magnitude - not
>>differing more than by a factor of 10.
>>>>
>>>>David could surely comment and clarify.
>>>
>>>Or it could mean that the volumes are the same, Xeon MP is much lower volume than
>>>DP (or whatever they call dual socket capable Xeons these >days).
>>
>>I was being purposefully vague with that statement, but I really meant CPU shipments.
>>
>>My sense is that IPF and Xeon MP shipments are within a factor of 2-3.
>>
>>I believe that Xeon MP is around 2M/year, IPF is probably close to 1M.
>
>David-Get an account with IDC because you need to check your facts. Based on IDC's
>latest server tracker data, for Q1-Q3 2008, 40,366 Itanium servers shipped (166,623
>Itanium CPUs). Clearly a bit off from 1M unless you are accounting for unsold chips
>and systems. 153,542 4-socket Xeon/EM64T servers (611,469 Xeon/EM64T Chips) shipped during same period. Thats 15x delta!
>

I say you are flat out wrong about processor count.

See slide 12 here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/7/7/3772d75c-bce4-4a1c-977c-2f6bb6ef7fda/IDC_Keynote_Frankfurt_2008.pdf

IDC says the average Itanium system sold for HPC in 2007
had 7 processors and was priced at $8966 per processor.
That means 150,000 processors shipped just for HPC and
HPC was less than a third of IPF sales in 2007. IPF sales
in each of Q1, Q2, and Q3 2008 were higher YoY according
to public IDC and HP statements and I doubt system price
per processor went up *at all* in 2008 let alone by a big
factor.

Your implied claim of an average of 4.1 processors per
Itanium system can't pass a basic sniff test.

See slide 9 here:

http://hp-user-society.de/events/itanium/2006/vortraege/itanium_und_integrity_im_rechenzentrum.pdf

The trend over three years is clearly to higher processor
count in Itanium systems sold. In Q4 2006 the portion of
revenue represented by 2s and 4s systems had fallen
below 30% of Itanium sales two years ago.

Also see slide 17 here:

https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp010.nsf/vLookupPDFs/%EB%A1%9C%EB%93%9C%EC%87%BC%EB%8C%80%EA%B5%AC_%EA%B0%80%EC%83%81%ED%99%94-%EC%84%9C%EB%B2%84%ED%86%B5%ED%95%A9_081030(%ED%97%88%EC%9A%B1)/$file/%EB%A1%9C%EB%93%9C%EC%87%BC%EB%8C%80%EA%B5%AC_%EA%B0%80%EC%83%81%ED%99%94-%EC%84%9C%EB%B2%84%ED%86%B5%ED%95%A9_081030(%ED%97%88%EC%9A%B1).pdf

IDC says HP shipped about 1200 Superdomes per quarter
for Unix in 2007. Some of those were PA-RISC - about as
many as IPF Superdomes shipped with Windows or Linux
and not counted in those 1200. IDC and HP numbers for
Q1-Q3 2008 all show higher Itanium sales each quarter
YoY. It isn't unreasonable that HP sold >4000 Itanium
Superdomes in Q1-Q3 2008:

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/107846-0-0-0-121.html?ERL=true

"December 2008: IDC released a quarterly update to their Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, citing market share figures for the 3rd calendar quarter of 2008 (3Q08).
Consider these telling facts:

[..]

Fact 8: HP is the leader in the high-end UNIX market, with a 41.1% revenue share, and a 42.9% units share.

HP was the only major UNIX vendor to grow high-end UNIX revenue and gained 4.6 points revenue share year over year."


Your claimed processor numbers are totally incompatible
with these four linked presentations with IDC numbers
and public IDC press releases to date.

Feel free to either post a link defending your claim or
retract it.