https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-08-17-IBM-Reveals-Next-Generation-IBM-POWER10-Processor
11 replies (most recent on top)
Nvidia put the nail in the coffin of Power today Buying ARM For 40 billion sets the chip strategy for the next generation of AI Power has been shoved into the corner as a Niche of a Niche player I used to expect power to be spun off, but who would invest in it now that Nvidia has set the bar
Not sure if IBM or Samsung is worse in terms of quality. Samsung Blu-ray players all over the world failed simultaneously a couple months ago due to bad config file automatically sent, even if you unchecked "automatic updates", and they are "fixing" them (injecting new non-broken pre-boot config file) even out of warranty. Shows they have broken QA process.
I suppose a not-quite-working supercomputer would just mean a hefty support contract would be required.
I have a Samsung stove .... Worked one year and then stopped .
Yes, cheaper processors from intel and amd beat power all the way, people figured they can take one time vost hit and shift to them anyway.
Also the product is going to be buggy when there are more managers in a project than actual employees doing the work. Hardware isn't like software which can be fixed by releasing a patch for free
IBM will spin it off and license the IP OS/400 and AIX will be retained by IBM and ridden for as long as they make money. Power while a superb Chip is still considered a niche product. Intel and AMD are just good enough for most applications. The volume of Power doesn’t justify it surviving as a stand alone market. If IBM spins it off, and Samsung develops some additional customers then you have a business case to continue forward. The spinoff of Power Ideally will have to go to someone who has a channel organization. Secondarily the spinoff could go to someone who has a vested interest (Samsung to protect their investment, Oracle to protect their SW stack, SAP to protect their large memory stack, etc etc) When you are on a 25%+ year over year shrink rate you have to make changes
I was part of the P9 team when I was laid off in May. Many people from my team got cut. Design, performance, powerAI all the teams were affected. P10 is supposed to have a matrix multiplication unit for AI workloads but the entire powerAI team was let go. Some are speculating that P10 will be the last Power processor and IBM will stop working on P11. I have heard from sources at Bloomberg that they are migrating their workload from AIX to Linux. If other financial companies also start doing that, there is no barrier for them to switch to a much faster (single thread performance) CPU from Intel or AMD. P9 single thread performance was 30-40% slower than Intel and P10 when it comes out will again be slower than the competition. Power is going down the road of SUN Sparc, IBM will either sell it or spin it off as another company.
Announcement is now, but when will it actually be in actual computers that companies can buy? I believe Power 9 took a year or more from announcement to availability in products.
IBM's ability to build anything really good on its own has rapidly diminished to very little capability. It is a shell of a real technology company. Without acquisitions, IBM would just be a large managed IT services company. Maybe that's what it is anyhow.
@Post ID: @edy+16uUuJaf
There's a few reasons those IBM teams were laid off. The entire power 9 product was an absolute disaster. It was the buggiest product line anyone has ever seen. They Also they had to close down open power cause of technology trade restrictions with other countries.
IBM laid off all of the Power development teams in May. (LINUX, Openpower, adaptors, and design) Now they have signed a deal with Samsung for P10. Somebody has to fill that void and yes layoffs are most likely part of it.
What does this have to do with IBM Layoffs?
@OP - go spread your propaganda somewhere else