Alpha CPUs & motherboards - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

20 Jul 2001

...
  On July 20, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
     Having
no better explanation, I respectfully submit that this
 "shortage" of Alpha hardware is due to random market fluctuations.  
 I wonder how much of it is due to businesses sucking up spares to keep
 their real work going for the long term now that Compaq has EOLed the
 line (prematurely, many would say!!)  
   That would be downright silly, because they haven't EOLed the
 line...they've announced that the WILL EOL it, in what should be a
 couple of years. 
There is a lot of panic about the future EOL of the Alpha, with
a lot of people equating that to the end of OpenVMS, which is
wrong.  This is just another architecture transition.  I would
have preferred that the Alpha go on, but the real point is the
OS, not the CPU.

I can see people trying to stock up spares ahead of the EOL,
though.  It would be better to grab them while they are
plentiful and cheap than to wait until the EOL when people
will want to stockpile some of the items that will be harder
to get later.
-- 
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net