Re:Linux and Alpha - A Great combination... (Score 1)

The Alpha architecture is partially under the control of Intel, because they acquired some DEC facilities when Compaq was taking over.
Last summer around July a friend had a meeting with the friendly folks from Intel.
They put it in so many words:
"At Intel we build Intel chips."

So you might need to tone down the pipe-dreams about Alpha competing with Intel.

Secondly, MS dropped the ball on Alpha only because *Compaq* announced it would stop supporting NT on the Alpha. First it was announced that 32b support would go, then the brilliant management decided 64b NT would not be supported either. The engineers at DEC-West (the Pacific Northwest facility which used to do all the NT development and credited with the excellent emulation layer FX!32) dont have jobs anymore.

Wonder of wonders Compaq still supports OpenVMS. Apparently they are trying to position the Alpha platform for Tru64, OpenVMS and Linux.

Except for very high-performance applications, Alpha is just not price-competitive. Don't get me wrong: I am very impresed with the Alpha family. At work I have a dual-proc 533mhz Ultimate WKS. Alpha shines at scientific computing and highend. But for things like web servers, you can get 4 or 8-way PIIIs that support clustering, much cheaper than the Alpha system with comparable performance. Once Merced comes out the gap will be closed even more.

The idea of "Alpha at home" will not fly with consumers.