Neowin.net

Advanced Micro Devices on Monday rallied a new phalanx of Opteron processors for servers, on the same day that rival Intel also unveiled a battery of server chips. The chipmaker introduced the Opteron 800 and Opteron 100, the two latest versions of its 64-bit Opteron processor for servers. AMD created the 800 line for four-processor or eight-processor servers and the 100 line for single-processor servers.

AMD wants to use Opteron to gain acceptance in the business market by helping to lower the price of 64-bit servers. A 64-bit server's inherent capabilities, such as handling more RAM, should boost performance in some settings when measured against current 32-bit servers. The company plans to pay particularly close attention to making a mark with four-processor servers based on the Opteron 800, its executives have said.

"We're going to play a role in establishing a new price point in four-way servers. Right now there is a lot of distance between two-way and eight-way servers. AMD is going to create a new price performance category in the four-way space," Rob Herb, AMD's chief of sales and marketing, said in an interview with CNET News.com at the Opteron launch event in April.

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News source: c|net

DAVID AND GOLIATH

Vodafone operations already use bare-bones RealNetworks software to bring live TV and music clips to handsets.

The deal will also affect mobile phone purchases, since Vodafone will tell vendors it prefers handsets with RealOne.

"Real will be able to sell to many more operators and handset vendors on the back of this deal," said industry analyst Neil Mawston at Strategy Analytics.

He said Real was now also well ahead of rivals such as Israel's Emblaze and PacketVideo.

A tough challenge looms, however, from software titan Microsoft, which already took a big chunk of the market for software that feeds live media to personal computers -- after Real pioneered the product in the 1990s.

Microsoft includes its Media Player in the ubiquitous Windows software that runs 90 percent of all personal computers and about half of all handheld computers.

Cell phones, however, will be no pushover for the world's largest software company, with hardly any of the 450 million cell phones that will be sold this year running on Windows.

As for RealNetworks, Finland's Nokia is so far the only handset maker with the RealOne player pre-installed on some mobile phone models, although Siemens AG and Samsung Electronics will soon start selling high-end handsets with the software.

The software will also be available for downloading to some phones and comes pre-installed on a several handheld computers from Palm, Hewlett-Packard and NEC.

Windows Media Player and RealOne generally are not compatible and cannot decode and play content encoded in the other format.

The RealNetworks software in Vodafone's mobile networks, however, will allow streaming of other formats, including the open MPEG4 format, Apple Computer's QuickTime and Windows Media Player. This keeps Vodafone's options open to include Microsoft devices in its handset range.