Re: Minutes from Feb 21 LSE Call

William Lee Irwin III
2003-02-22T20:15:20Z

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