My two cents
1. IDC Server Tracker FY07 - Vendor: HP, Processor Type: PA-RISC, Server Class: High-End Enterprise Server. Sum of Units: More than 500 (I'm afraid I must respect some "confidentiality"). Hard to believe, but Superdome PA-RISC is still alive.
2. "And IBM's tricks with TPC are old and notorious, like using $5m of back-end storage with an unrealistically and massively partitioned database to try and make a mid-range server look good"
Everybody uses a crazy mountain of storage with the TPC-C audits, not only IBM. One example: 320.974GB with the last and **heavily partitioned** Superdome Integrity.
3. "Integrity allows you to host Windows, hp-ux and Linux virtual machines (yes, just like VMware!) on the one system, right from the bottom of the Integrity range to the top" -
Windows on Superdome? What a terrible idea!...
SAP SD 2-Tier (you see? I don't need to use TPC-C):
Superdome 9050. 64 cores. Windows: 46.380 SAPS
p5-595 @ 2,3GHz. 64 cores. AIX: 117.520 SAPS
TPC-H 3TB (TPC but not C, ok?)
Superdome 9050. 64 cores. Windows: 60.359 QphH
p5-595 @ 2,3GHz. 64 cores. AIX: 100.512 QphH
And the Big Fella is coming!!
BTW: good article, Ashlee.