SUN Microsystems makes the switch to Intel processors

The last 12 months seemed to be a very good period for Intel, who launched the successful Core CPU family, which are used also by Apple for it’s Mac desktop, laptop and server product lineup.

Today another industry big name, SUN Microsystems, announced the switch to Intel CPU’s from their usual AMD Opteron chips, that are no longer considered optimal for the giant’s needs. For beginning, SUN will use Xeon chips in their server and workstation products running Solaris OS, which will be optimized for single, dual and quad Xeon chips. It seems that SUN will also try to set up 4-way systems, but for now they continue to support SPARK and x86 architectures for 4-way servers and workstations.

My comment is that Intel’s move is a strategical one, because of the low margins of their PC designed CPU’s (due to the price war with AMD), with the goal of opening new market segments that eventually will up their profits, which were reported very low in the last quarter of 2006.