Intel is driving into Sun's telco heartland with its first industry-certified carrier grade servers. The chip giant is offering two form factors, both conforming to reliability and robustness standards ordained by the Network Equipment Building Specification (NEBS).

These are a 2U-sized dual Pentium III processor server and the second is a 1U, dual-processor form factor (1U = 1.75in. The company is also signalling its intention to introduce Xeon and Itanium-based carrier-grade servers at some point.

Intel's pitch to the telcos is that it can supply non-proprietary -i.e. cheaper - server building blocks. Even if it is slow to pick up sales in the sector, its price lists will put Sun Microsoystems, the historic market leader, under more pressure, at a time when customers are thinking long and hard about capital spending. ®

Press Release

Intel Targets Telecom Market With Carrier-Class Server Products (http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20011212net.htm?iid=update+011212&)