Intel will not position the Atom for server markets

From InfoWorld: Intel will not position its Atom processor for the server market, even as some vendors are building servers around collections of hundreds of low-power Atom processors, a company executive said.

A server that integrates 512 Atom processors with Ethernet switching, server management and application load-balancing was demonstrated earlier this month at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco by SeaMicro, a vendor of low-power server technology.

The SeaMicro server, and some new servers that use low-power chips based on ARM processors, will address only very niche markets, Kirk Skaugen, Intel's vice president and general manager of its Data Center Group, said on Thursday.

"We are not opposed to an Atom based server, but we just don't see broad adoption of the Atom as a server chip," he said.

ARM processors have the added disadvantage of not being compatible with software written for the x86 architecture, Skaugen said.

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