Fujitsu and Intel to collaborate on mainframe class Linux computer

By Steve Malone

Posted on 24 Jan 2003 at 09:58

Fujitsu has announced it is to build a new generation of mission-critical enterprise class computers based initially on the Intel Xeon processor DP and MP systems available by end of 2004.

By the end of 2005, Fujitsu expects to be shipping versions based on the Itanium chips. These systems will scale up to the most sophisticated, 128 processor-capable mainframe-class systems.

Although the announcement states that the machines will run either Windows or Linux, the partners are putting a lot of resources into working with the Linux community to beef up its performance, functionality and reliability.

Tadayasu Sugita, corporate senior executive vice president and CTO, Fujitsu Limited said in a statement `We see great opportunities from this new collaboration with Intel to extend our mission-critical enterprise solutions to the fast-growing Linux space and to be the world's first vendor to bring such Intel-based systems to the market`.

Fujitsu gained a major foothold in the UK through its purchase of ICL in 1998 and is now the third biggest IT vendor in the world. It is already a major player in the Unix market and last October set up a Linux systems group which, the company says, consists of more than 300 engineers.

For Intel, this is another chance - this time with one of the biggest Enterprise systems vendors in the world - to make its chips serious players against the proprietary systems of the likes of IBM, Sun and Hewlett-Packard. Likewise for the Linux community, having Fujitsu and Intel working to make Linux a product to be taken seriously at the top end of the IT market is another milestone on the way to corporate respectability.