Dell’s AMD servers: When WHAT freezes over?

At Oracle OpenWorld today (which I did not attend), Dell introduced its first AMD-based servers, the PowerEdge SC1435 and PowerEdge 6950. Both are rack-mounted systems. The SC1435 is an entry-level pizza box with two dual-core Opterons; the 4U-high 6950 uses four chips.

When you couple that with Apple’s move to Intel processors, and Sun’s supporting Windows on its x86 servers, it’s clear that you can’t take anything for granted any more. Next you hear, Microsoft will embrace Linux and Mono, and IBM will license NetBeans. You think?

Speaking of Oracle OpenWorld: the company claims more than 41,000 attendees. San Francisco is bursting at the seams; the conference is going to have to go someplace like Las Vegas soon. Is Oracle OpenWorld the next Comdex?