http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-921865.html

IBM's Unix server has edged ahead of Hewlett-Packard's in the single most
scrutinized performance test for high-end servers.
IBM's p690 " Regatta" Unix server, introduced late in 2001, posted a score
of 403,000 transactions per minute on a speed test called TPC-C, IBM said
Thursday. That compared to the 389,000 score of HP's Superdome machine.

Performance "benchmark" measurements aren't a complete reflection of a
computer's abilities but often are one of the first things customers look
at. HP spent more than a million dollars trying to achieve a fast TPC-C
result after early results were hampered by what the company later said was
sabotage.

Competitors leapfrog each other as new systems arrive, and IBM's
32-processor Regatta was released about a year after HP's 64-processor
Superdome. The king of the TPC-C mountain is Fujitsu Technology Solutions,
with a 128-processor PrimePower 2000, but that system uses unusual database
software while HP and IBM, both of which have vastly more Unix server market
share, use the common Oracle database.

The benchmark, from the Transaction Performance Council, measures a
simulated warehouse application by way of which many simulated computer
users enter orders, record payments and perform other simultaneous
transactions on a large database.

The IBM benchmark uses version 5.2 of its AIX operating system, a product
that's not yet available but that's expected to ship in October. The TPC
rules permit publication of results with products that will be available
within six months.

IBM expects to increase its lead as it refines work on the test. HP,
meanwhile, promises to beat IBM's newest result soon.

Sun Microsystems, which has maintained top Unix server market share despite
intensified competition from HP and IBM, has declined to participate in the
TPC-C benchmark battle, calling the test a poor measurement of current
computing reality.

IBM is in the midst of a major overhaul of its high-end servers, merging the
designs over the course of years so it can use the same components on all
machines. The strategy resembles that of Sun, which focuses the vast
majority of its research on a single line of servers.

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