[Info-vax] The Machine - Dows Jones newswire report

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 11/29/2016 5:33 AM, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> On Tuesday, 29 November 2016 03:46:35 UTC, Arne Vajhøj  wrote:
>> On 11/28/2016 7:03 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>>> x86-64 server boxes are around for multiple decades, low-volume hardware
>>> tends to be really expensive hardware, lower-volume hardware or software
>>> and that requires specialized programming tools or skills tends to be
>>> more expensive,
>>
>> And if time has shown one thing then it is that high volume and
>> low cost solutions tend to win in IT.
>
> Maybe. It may depend on the criteria used to
> define "win".
>
> High profit tends to win, but isn't always high
> visibility, whereas high volume is often by
> definition high visibility. Exception to "high
> volume = high visibility": not many people
> realise how dependent they have been on ARM
> system-on-chip designs in their hard drives, TVs,
> routers, etc. That said...
>
> "High profit" may mean a little profit on a lot of
> systems (e.g. generic x86 tin, "ARM everywhere",
> etc), stuff that Joe Public can readily see, names
> familiar from the technology/fashion media.
>
> Or it may mean higher margins on a much smaller
> number of systems (e.g. the niche stuff that gets
> used in high frequency financial trading and where
> customers don't mind paying a fortune because the
> extra millisecond they save gets them at the front
> of the queue for million-dollar profits rather
> than second in the queue). Joe Public may not see
> much of these, maybe systems sell by the hundreds
> not by  the millions, but **they win in the market
> in which they choose to compete** (for now).

Try compare the high profit margin products
like Alpha, Power, SPARC, Itanium with those
low profit margin x86-64 thingies. How did
it go?

Arne