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Define "micro-servers".
Generally available or 'enterprise' channel only?
Micro servers – those tiny machines suitable for dedicated hosting and Web infrastructure workloads – are not exactly taking the market by storm, but they are carving out a niche for themselves. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco today, Naveen Bohra, a product marketing engineer at the chip maker, trotted out …
I'd expect it to have completely crap SVGA 2D on-chip graphics. So not so much "not available", as "not suitable for". (Of course if it has enough PCI-X lanes you could integrate it with a third-party graphics chip, but you'd probably lose most of the power advantage by doing that)
"what do you think it is driving that NAS box in the corner. especially when that NAS box is a Media Server, Web server, torrent client etc.."
That sounds like a Linux box. A Linux box don't need x86 inside. Only a Window box needs x86 inside, and even that may be subject to change before too long (but will it last longer than it did last time?)
it is linux yes. Being x86 it enables the server to run so many more useful apps that will only work on x86 architechture. (off the top of my head say a minecraft server)
heres an x86 Nas box:
http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_hardware.asp?p_id=178
and an arm equiv:
http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_hardware.asp?p_id=182
"If I buy a chip, the manufacturer does not tell me what I can and can't do with it."
Maybe they just tell you what will cause you to lose your Intel-provided co-marketing funding and similar sweeteners?
And in this instance one might speculate that co-marketing funding, preferred partner pricing, etc would be at risk for any outfit that dares to put microserver chips in non-microserver hardware?
OK. First Intel tries to push the market with GHz on Northbridge and gets GHz moved up from 0.7 to 2.8/3.5. Then Intel keeps it at the 2.3/3.5 GHz for eight years and switches over to high core-count. Now that core-count are not-drawing crowds, they are moving down to lower GHz and much lower power.
Cool, so long as you are confident that Intel is pulling the market where your company needs it to go.