Fujitsu adds Intel to server camp

Fujitsu has picked an unlikely ally with which to collaborate on future server designs. Expanding beyond its line of SPARC processors, the Tokyo-based company has announced plans to ship servers that use Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel’s Xeon and Itanium processors.

The new servers will run the Linux operating system instead of Sun Microsystems Solaris, which is the current OS of choice for Fujitsu’s PrimePower servers. Although the shift toward Intel and Linux raises questions about Fujitsu’s commitment to the SPARC processor, officials said there are no plans to abandon the current product line. “Fujitsu will continue to offer the SPARC line of servers for the foreseeable future,” said Richard Dracott, group director of enterprise marketing at Intel. “At this stage, it is clearly an enhancement to an existing line.”

Fujitsu plans to roll out a variety of Xeon-based servers from two-processor systems and higher by the end of 2004. It will follow those with a massive 128-processor Itanium server in 2005, Dracott said. To help Linux scale up to a system of that size, Fujitsu plans to tap its experience building mainframes and a newly formed Linux systems group that includes 300 engineers.

Fujitsu’s decision to broaden its product portfolio could be a response to the high costs associated with designing and manufacturing processors, according to one analyst.

“You are seeing the next stage of the second-tier companies coming to grips with ongoing processor and OS development,” said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Nashua, N.H.-based Illuminata. “Which isn’t to say Fujitsu or SGI will necessarily drop their current Unix lines, but they are certainly looking at Linux very carefully and somewhat enviously.”

Fujitsu will be working hand in hand with a number of companies that are trying to strengthen Linux at a quick clip. The open-source OS is not usually found on servers with more than four processors, but several vendors hope to take it to the same heights as Unix in short order.

“It’s certainly getting there,” Haff said. “To simply dismiss out of hand Linux’s capability of going to 32-, 64-, or even 128-processors in a few years is not something I would have a lot of confidence doing.”

A Sun spokesperson declined to comment on Fujitsu’s move to embrace Intel processors, saying only that Sun remains fully committed to using the SPARC architecture.