SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 17, 1999 -- Intel Corporation today unveiled its Pentium® III Xeon™ processor family, extending Intel's products further into e-commerce and high-end computing solutions. The company also outlined its strategy to provide a foundation for the Internet via powerful Intel Architecture-based servers and workstations.
Intel's strategy reflects both the Internet's explosive growth as it redefines commerce worldwide -- and projections that point towards a billion connected PCs and trillion dollar e-commerce industry revenues in the next decade.
"Intel is providing a common architecture to help businesses grow and take advantage of new opportunities made possible by the Internet," said Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager, Intel Architecture Business Group. "With the introduction of the Pentium III Xeon family for servers and workstations, we have an even more powerful, scaleable and compelling platform for viewing, creating, and sharing Internet-driven content."
"Our strategy is to offer a unified, Intel-based computing platform that provides the necessary performance, compatibility, flexibility and availability that companies of all sizes need to address for tomorrow's enterprise opportunities," said John Miner, vice president and general manager of Intel's Enterprise Server Group. "Intel Architecture provides all of this along with the economic benefits that come from a standard building block approach to developing specific business solutions."
Intel's role in powering the evolving Internet is already significant and expected to grow rapidly in the next few years. For the overall server market segment, Intel-based servers currently represent approximately 80 percent of total units shipped, with that percentage expected to grow by 2002, according to International Data Corporation (IDC)*. IDC also estimates that approximately 80 percent of Internet and Intranet servers shipped in 1998 were based on Intel Architecture**.
In the workstation market segment, IDC reported that Intel-based, purpose-built workstations shipping in 1998 made up 59 percent of the market segment, with that percentage expected to grow by 2002***.
Intel will initially offer a speed of 500 Megahertz (MHz) for its Pentium III Xeon family, available in 512 kilobyte (KB), 1 megabyte (MB) and 2 MB Level 2 (L2) cache versions for two-, four- and eight-way (and higher) servers and workstations. A 550 MHz processor with 512 KB L2 cache for two-way workstations and servers is expected to ship next month, with 550 MHz, 512 KB, 1 MB and 2 MB L2 cache options for four- and eight-way (and higher) servers expected to be available in the third quarter of 1999.
Intel's Profusion chipset for eight-way servers, which extends the standards-based building block approach to high-end servers for complex, business critical and data intensive computing needs, is expected to be available during the second quarter of 1999, with server systems using the chipset shipping beginning in the third quarter.
The Pentium III Xeon processor family is "drop-in" compatible with existing systems utilizing the Pentium II Xeon processor, providing seamless integration into existing infrastructures with minimal requalification requirements.
The new processor incorporates the latest technological innovations from Intel including Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions. The 70 new instructions offer increased performance benefits for workstations and servers by enhancing the performance of streaming media and memory intensive applications as well as internet applications. The new instructions will provide additional performance improvements for workstations in areas such as content creation, mechanical design, electronic design automation, high-end financial applications and scientific research. In addition, Internet, database, and streaming media applications for servers will benefit from SIMD Extensions.
The Pentium III Xeon processor also offers a new selectable processor serial number feature that, when enabled, works in conjunction with security solutions to provide for more secure Internet transactions. Corporate IT managers will be able to use the processor serial number feature to enhance asset management, making it easier to track workstations and servers on the network, as well as manage information better and control access to sensitive corporate data.
Complete benchmark information for servers and workstations are available at www.intel.com/procs/servers/performance/index.htm and www.intel.com/businesscomputing/wrkstn/mid_range/benchmark_landing.htm.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including Bull, Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intergraph, Quantex, Pionex Technologies, Siemens and Silicon Graphics plan to begin shipping workstations and servers based on the Pentium III Xeon processor shortly. In addition, Acer America, Data General, Micron, NCR, NEC CSD, Sequent, Toshiba and Unisys also plan to ship servers based on the Pentium III Xeon processor shortly. Operating system solutions including Linux****, Netware****, Solaris****, Unixware****, and Windows**** 2000/NT**** have also been optimized to run on the Pentium III Xeon processor.
Today's announcement complements a variety of other ongoing Intel efforts to expand the capabilities of Intel Architecture-based workstations and servers for small and large businesses. Areas of focus include a transition management program, processor scalability and "clustering" technology, the OpenMP multiprocessor initiative, on site customer Application Solution Centers, platform initiatives for Intel Architecture servers, notably NGIO (Next Generation I/O) and common design guides for server appliances, servers running UNIX operating systems and future IA-64 based servers, WTX workstation chassis program and AGP Pro workstation graphics initiative.
In 1,000 unit quantities, pricing for the Pentium III Xeon processor at 500 MHz (available now) with 512 KB L2 cache, (U.S.) $931; 500 MHz with 1MB L2 cache, (U.S.) $1,980; 500 MHz with 2MB L2 cache, (U.S.) $3,692.
Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.
*International Data Corporation (IDC); Server Forecast, Oct. 2, 1998.
**International Data Corporation (IDC) Server Consulting; "Internet and Intranet Server Forecast: Segmentation Study"; December 1998.
***International Data Corporation (IDC), "Updated Worldwide Workstation Forecast, 1998-2002," Author: Laura Segervall, October 1998.
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© 1999 Intel Corporation