The Full Monte-cito (part 2)
One Stop Shop vs. Best-of-breed
Never in computing can one say that one size fits all. In spite of the potential advantages that Itanium 2 brings to the table, there may be times when a business-critical system provided by IBM or Sun is best.
Sun, for example, designs their machines to work as a system. The software and the hardware are optimized for each other. It’s sort of like Intel’s Centrino, in which hardware and software are optimized to provide performance and long battery life for notebooks, except that in Sun’s case it’s for entire systems.
The IBM and Sun approach is just another spin on the one stop shop preference. One reason why many managers prefer one stop shop is that there’s less finger-pointing when something goes wrong. You can only blame yourself, if you are the only vendor.
The Itanium 2 platform is more akin to a best-of-breed approach, wherein one selects the components one wants.
The one stop shop approach has dominated the high end for so long that it is perhaps only natural for a reaction to set in against this approach in this space. Don’t be surprised if Itanium 2 continues to grow in the coming years.