
Google and Rackspace develop open server architecture on IBM Power9 hardware - protomyth
https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/04/Google-and-Rackspace-co-develop-open-server-architecture-based-on-new-IBM-POWER9-hardware.html
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mindcrime
Superficially, I want to say "this is great news". BUT... I feel burned out on
POWER. In fact, I'm kind of tired of hearing about it.

WAIT before you down-vote... I'm not saying it's bad, and if anything, it's
just the opposite. I _WANT_ a POWER based machine. And I've been patiently
waiting for something like a decade (or more? Hell, I've forgotten by now) to
be able to call up Tyan or Asus and order a $200.00 motherboard, order a POWER
chip from NewEgg, slap the processor and some DIMM's onto the motherboard and
jam it into an ATX case and go. But no...

OK, I understand that IBM are trying to appeal to the upper end of the market.
It was never their choice to try and win over the hobbyists and experimenters
and the low-end of the market. But now, with OpenPOWER we should, in theory,
finally get some of that. But still, announcement after announcement and rumor
after rumor appear, and I still can't order a cheap ATX motherboard, stick it
in a case with a POWER chip and get to work. It frustrates the hell out of me
to, as I think it's crucially important to have alternatives to the x86
hegemony.

(And yeah, I know you can order that Tyan server for $3,000 or whatever. If
you can actually get one. But $3,000 is not exactly chump change).

~~~
nickpsecurity
I'm with you on that. I recall back when there were affordable PPC systems
really competing with Intel running alternative OS's. Fun stuff. I've even
told people about each new POWER chip because they're often badass in some
way. Yet, it's constantly out of reach for most of us because the numbers
don't add up at these prices.

Further, I speculate this is harming it in the long-run because so much code
out there comes from the scratching an itch phenomenon. People usually do that
on whatever boxes they like working with. If basically none have POWER
machines, then basically none of that code is going to be for POWER
architecture. I don't have the data to test or prove this but I'm sure there's
network effects there.

Just look at the explosion of code for ARM following the explosion of cheap
devices. And Intel before it. And the major microcontrollers. And so on.

~~~
jabl
I'm sure everyone involved in this OpenPOWER game is aware of the "attack of
the killer micros". So the question is, why try again with the same recipe
that already failed?

Getting something out there which is bang-for-buck competitive with Xeons is
really the key here. But without massive volume, it's probably very hard to
do. And the Intel division that makes Xeons apparently runs at 50% gross
margins, so if they feel threatened the are certainly able to dump prices to
make life for any competitor even more difficult.

~~~
hga
But if they were serious about making a go at it, they'd, say, sell the
motherboards and CPUs at cost and/or perhaps twice what Xeon systems go for.
But everything I've heard before and in this discussion puts them at $3K per
socket (I think for a barebones system), and that's a non-starter for
something that isn't 10 times better than the competition (a common metric for
what it takes to get attention when there's an entrenched competent
competition).

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bogomipz
I think this was to coincide with the Open Power summit going on right now,
there a link of the hardware announced at the top of this:

[http://openpowerfoundation.org/openpower-
summit-2016/](http://openpowerfoundation.org/openpower-summit-2016/)

~~~
mindcrime
Wow, thanks for sharing. Now _this_ is encouraging. Looks like there are
several servers available (well, announced), including ones from Penguin
Computing and Mark III.

Maybe this does bode well for the eventual availability of affordable POWER
based kit in the not-too-distant future.

