Computer World is reporting:
http://computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/server/story/0%2C10801%
2C71104%2C00.html?nlid=AM

IBM drops Intel high-end server
Users of an IBM server line the company acquired through its purchase of
Sequent Computer Systems Inc. are being forced to migrate to other systems
as a result of IBM's decision to ditch the technology.
IBM announced the Intel-based 64-processor xSeries 430 server featuring
Sequent's Non-Uniform Memory Architecture in March 2001. In March of this
year, it posted a notice of plans to withdraw the product, along with
Sequent's associated Dynix/ptx Unix operating system.

Some Sequent users are clearly agitated.

"IBM's actions have left us with a very bad taste in our mouths for
anything IBM," said Michael Wojtowicj, manager of systems engineering at
Entertainment Partners, a Burbank, Calif.-based company that provides
production management services in the entertainment industry.

The company has been a Sequent customer since 1989 and uses several NUMA
systems and Dynix/ptx to run all of its core applications. Now it's being
forced to rewrite all of its applications in Java and C to enable a
migration to a new platform.

"I think IBM's objective was to first trap customers on this platform and
then force them to move to [IBM's] Unix boxes," Wojtowicj said.

The move has been expected for some time because of both the lack of
customer response to the NUMA box and the lack of software and database
support around Dynix/ptx, said Michael Prince, vice president and CIO at
Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. in Burlington, N.J.

Nonetheless, "it's disappointing that this happened," said Prince. He
added that his company has a "significant investment" in Sequent's NUMA
systems, which it uses as database and application servers.

Pulling the Plug

With IBM pulling the plug, Burlington Coat Factory is considering moving
everything to a cluster of smaller Unix or Linux servers. That task is
complicated by the company's planned upgrade to Oracle9, Prince said.
Moving off the NUMA boxes, adds a significant amount of extra work, Prince
said.

Starting Dec. 31, IBM will stop selling both the server and the operating
system, though it will continue to support Dynix/ptx through 2006 and the
hardware through 2007.

Sequent's NUMA technology allowed the company to assemble very large Intel
boxes using four-processor building blocks.

Although Sequent never managed to find a large market for its products, it
did snag several big-name customers, such as The Boeing Corp. and Carlson
Hospitality Worldwide.

When IBM acquired Sequent for $810 million in 1999, the company said it
would use NUMA to deliver very large Intel boxes. The xSeries 430 server,
which started at $160,000 for an eight-way system, was expected to be the
first in a line of even larger Intel boxes.

IBM is now urging users to move their applications to its 32-way p690
Unix/RISC servers or to smaller four- or eight-way Intel boxes.

An IBM spokesman last week characterized the move as a routine product
withdrawal. Though it formally announced the withdrawal in March, IBM has
been contacting customers about the move since last year, he said.

"We do these things all the time. We replace technologies with new
technologies. . . . We view this as a product evolution," the spokesman
said. "We are giving our customers plenty of time to execute a migration
strategy. And we'll continue to support their migration [to other
technologies]."
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Maybe someone at Boeing can reveal what other computer systems they run so
I know which ones to avoid.  ;-)

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