Server I/O Standard Battle Heats Up

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January 11, 1999 (12:00 AM EST)

By Joe Wilcox & Marcia Savage,

Launching a preemptive strike, Intel has assembled a consortium of companies in support of its Next-Generation I/O (NGIO) server architecture.

Dell Computer, Hitachi, NEC, Siemens Information Communications Network, and Sun Microsystems, will join Intel's NGIO Industry Forum and will serve on the steering committee.

Intel's move comes as top PC makers Compaq, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, which according to San Jose, Calif.-based Dataquest collectively account for about 55 percent of the worldwide server market, reportedly will introduce their own server I/O standard.

But the real success or failure of a new I/O standard may depend more on adapter card vendors than server OEMs, analysts said.

Both sides rallied support this week in anticipation of a showdown, industry sources said. Competing royalty-fee models could also help determine which standard prevails.

Tom Macdonald, general manager of Intel's NGIO program, said IBM's, HP's, and Compaq's effort to create a competing future I/O specification is "unfortunate."

"We'd love them to join the effort that we've been working on with the industry now for several years. It's unfortunate to create a competing, incompatible, other I/O specification. It just creates additional investment for the other members of the industry and confusion for end users," he said.

But analysts said the standards proposed by the two sides are quite similar and that this is more an issue of control than incompatibility or competing standards.

The control issue is one of adding value, said one source close to the three vendors. Three things affect server performance: memory, the processor and the I/O. If OEMs can't differentiate with I/O, there really isn't any other value add they can offer, the source said.

"When you're in the PC server space, it's a constant struggle to deliver some kind of differentiation that's going to be meaningful in the marketplace," said Tony Iams, senior analyst with D.H. Brown Associates, Port Chester, N.Y. "It's an ongoing push and pull between the leading system OEMs and the core technology providers, such as Intel and Microsoft."

Iams said he didn't "read a whole lot into," the rift and that this is by no means the first time competing initiatives have come out of the vendor community.

Several industry sources said this kind of behavior is business as usual, especially for Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM.

"IBM has been has been traditional in its efforts to evolve an alternative to both Microsoft and Intel," said Jim Garden, director of technical services for Technology Business Research, Hampton, N.H. "There is a history there of lining up with the alternative in the market against either Microsoft or Intel.

Officials for Houston-based Compaq downplayed the notion of a rift with Intel. "What's really going on is that we want to make sure we do what is right for the industry and for the end user. And the end user, of course, is the most important of all," said Karl Walker, Compaq's vice president of technology development.

Macdonald dismissed the idea that Intel's announcement on Thursday that it was forming a consortium might have been an effort to preempt the other three companies. Intel announced the NGIO initiative in November and has been working with many companies since to develop it, he said.

"We just have reached a point where these vendors are actively engaging and ready to commit publicly and ready to get going in leading this industry forum," he said.