[Info-vax] Sunway TaihuLight is the fastest supercomputer in the world

[IanD]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 2:14:33 AM UTC+10, Gianluca Bonetti wrote:
> Hello Digital Folks!
> 

<snip>

> Could have been HP to build such a computer made out of Alpha chips, but they bet on Itanium.
> And inkjet cartridges.
> And glossy paper.
> 
> Bye
> gl

Here's how I remember things, right or wrong...

The move to Itanium for everyone was on the cards and then AMD delivered a fatal blow to Itanium by coming up with 64 bit extensions to x86, what a master of a move that was

I remember the IT world cringing at the time with all the testing they would have to go through when windows moved to Itanium and how testing would need to happen all over again, for every software package

Then AMD gave x86 a 64 bit lease of life and suddenly there was no need to move off x86 anymore. After that, Itanium looked very niche, but HP insisted on ploughing ahead with it *sigh*

This is how I at least remember things...

As to the ink cartridge comment, that is spot on from my experience

I was part of a very large group of employee's that HP acquired through a  *cough* merger. 

I remember only too well the so called welcome talks we were given by very senior HP management and remember how a substantial amount of the talk was on how profitabile the ink cartridges were!
We walked out wondering how long before we were going to be given the arse as we were not in the commodity supply side of things at all. It turned out to be 10 months. We just didn't fit the quick buck sales strategy HP favored verses our long term customer building model with repeat sales.

I'm not sure how well Digital would have handled the down-costing of Alpha based hardware had it acquired the commodity crown

It seems those companies that start lean with specific products and fatten up have advantages over those who have already got fat and have to go skinny when market conditions change - but this is only my hearsay