Compaq Says Adios to Alpha

It looks like the beginning of the end of the RISC era. Though still in the rumor stage on Friday, Mike Magee over at The Inquirer predicted that Compaq would ditch its Alpha processor division, pushing many of us toward a Wintel future. The likely purchaser was rumored to be Intel, who could use the Alpha team and technology to improve upon the IA-64 architecture. Well, today , Mr. Magee says that Compaq has confirmed that it is sending all of its server families over to Intel. Along with the technology, the Alpha engineering team will also be pulling up roots and moving over to Intel. The move sure leaves Sun and HP out in the cold building RISC machines. We're sure the story has not completely played itself out and, as yet, no money appears to have changed hands. The Register has another perspective on the story. Stay tuned...