Computing benchmarks might give vendors bragging rights but they hardly provide users with a straightforward answer of whose technology is superior.

Mindful of this, Sun Microsystems has thrown down the gauntlet to Intel and last night challenged Chipzila to an arm wrestling competition.

Of course the arm wrestling competition isn't exactly a scientific way of deciding the relative merits of UltraSPARC III and Itanium but at least it'll reveal a clear winner - and won't involve making sense of statistics.

Like many good ideas the arm wrestling challenge was thought up over a beer in a curry house and we reckon the idea is a real winner. As well as an "alternative" to TPC benchmarks, arm wrestling could become a part of the competitive tendering process. This is an idea that could run and run... ®

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