Sun offers new tease for Niagara servers
Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz on Wednesday left the latest in a series of unsubtle hints that the company plans to launch a server line based on its new UltraSparc T1 "Niagara" processor next week.
"We're about to introduce an eight-core platform with four threads per chip," said Schwartz, describing the most notable attribute of the UltraSparc T1 during a conference call about Sun's latest software strategy.
Among the other indications that the Niagara systems are imminent: In November, Chief Executive Scott McNealy said the servers would debut late this quarter. The company repeated the deadline when it announced the new processor's official name earlier in November. And perhaps the most blatant hint came in the invitation to Sun's Network Computing event on Dec. 6, that touts new servers whose processors consume less than 80 watts--Niagara's official maximum being 72 watts--and that employ CoolThreads technology, the brand name for the UltraSparc T1's ability to run as many as 32 simultaneous instruction sequences called threads.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
