> Seems like a move to prevent RISC-V from gaining a foothold in the server market.
On it's face, yes - absolutely. IBM had to do it now if it didn't want its lunch entirely eaten out from under it. That said, that's a good thing. I think we'll see both architectures working from opposite sides and moving into each other's markets. It's still very early days for RISC-V and OpenPOWER, so hopefully they'll be able to benefit each other. We've got excellent open friendly hardware for OpenPOWER (Raptor Computing System's Talos/Blackbird and soon, Condor lines) and we're getting there with RISC-V embedded systems and mobiles.
At least now on both the high and low end of the performance spectrum we have open alternatives for all needs. Here's to a more open, more diverse future where none of us has to scramble to be everywhere, all the time, all at once.
On it's face, yes - absolutely. IBM had to do it now if it didn't want its lunch entirely eaten out from under it. That said, that's a good thing. I think we'll see both architectures working from opposite sides and moving into each other's markets. It's still very early days for RISC-V and OpenPOWER, so hopefully they'll be able to benefit each other. We've got excellent open friendly hardware for OpenPOWER (Raptor Computing System's Talos/Blackbird and soon, Condor lines) and we're getting there with RISC-V embedded systems and mobiles.
At least now on both the high and low end of the performance spectrum we have open alternatives for all needs. Here's to a more open, more diverse future where none of us has to scramble to be everywhere, all the time, all at once.