Analyst questions Sun's chip strategy

Sun Microsystems is not looking far enough ahead in terms of facing the threat from Intel's Itanium and McKinley processors, claims one leading analyst.

Chris Ingle, an analyst at IDC, believes that Sun is overlooking the as yet unreleased Itanium chip and focusing on immediate market concerns rather than the future.

Ingle said: "Itanium is a 10 or 20 year phenomenon. There's no question about whether Sun can compete against Itanium now, however the question is can it compete in five years' time when McKinley [Itanium second generation] is established."

Ingle said there are possible faults with Itanium that have been noted in tests: "There are several potential problems with Itanium including its high power consumption and the fact that it's incredibly complex. These are theoretical issues and may not impact in the real world."

He added: "You need a nuclear power generator to power it."

Ingle said it was "scary" that many competing chips had been scrapped, including PA RISC, Alpha and MIPS leaving Itanium and Sun's Ultrasparc to battle it out.

Itanium is said to offer 2Ghz of power, against Sun's 1.5Ghz.

John Loiacono, senior VP and chief marketing officer at Sun, said: "Itanium is supposed to offer 2Ghz but we haven't even seen it yet, plus it doesn't scale down to the lower end of the market. We will simply continue to compete."

Ingle said customers such as Compaq and HP are waiting for the advent of McKinley, Itanium's next step, due to be released next September.