Re: Minutes from Feb 21 LSE Call

[William Lee Irwin III <wli@holomorphy.com>]

On Sat, Feb 22, 2003 at 11:56:42AM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Err, here's a news flash.  Dell has just one server with more than
> 4 CPUS and it tops out at 8.  Everything else is clusters.  And they
> call any machine that doesn't have a head a server, they have servers
> starting $299.  Yeah, that's right, $299.
> http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/products/series_pedge_servers.htm

Sounds like low-capacity boxen meant to minimize colocation costs via
rackspace minimization.


On Sat, Feb 22, 2003 at 11:56:42AM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
> How much do you want to bet that more than 95% of their server revenue
> comes from 4CPU or less boxes?  I wouldn't be surprised if it is more
> like 99.5%.  And you can configure yourself a pretty nice quad xeon box
> for $25K.  Yeah, there is some profit in there but nowhere near the huge
> margins you are counting on to make your case.

Ask their marketing dept. or something. I can maximize utility
integrals and find Nash equilibria, but can't tell you Dell's secrets.


-- wli