Resellers Weigh Dual-Core Sales Opportunities

While the marketing talk strives to make dual-core technology sound like the solution for all problems, many integrators are not buying the hype.

Twenty-six percent of resellers surveyed by CRN last month said they felt dual-core based systems will have a significant impact on the server market over the next 12 months, which jibes with the fact that dual-core systems offer a significant price advantage over traditional multiple processor systems.

But bang for the buck is not always the most important element when deploying a server; in some cases, performance still reigns supreme. Performance concerns are echoed by 54 percent of respondents, who felt that dual-core only promises a moderate impact on the server market, while the remaining 20 percent felt the impact would be only slight.

But the hype surrounding dual-core is having an impact; 48 percent of solution providers said they felt that the server market would be impacted the most by dual-core systems. Only half as many (24 percent) viewed dual-core as the next big thing for engineering and CAD systems, a market the technology seems best suited for.

To best leverage dual core, one has to consider the software being deployed. Nearly half of solution providers said that Windows Server 2003 offers the biggest potential for leveraging dual-core performance, while another 23 percent felt that Windows XP offers a better fit, showing that dual-core does indeed have a place on the desktop, not just the server. Only 10 percent felt that Windows Small Business Server 2003 offered any real opportunity for dual-core technology, which proves to be interesting because most SBS deployments are very cost-conscious and need a high-performance single server. Finally, 23 percent viewed Linux as a driving force for dual core, reflecting the fact that Linux has offered multithreaded, multiprocessor support for some time.

While the dual-core onslaught is sure to shake up the market, there is a lack of certainty among the channel players just where this will happen. It&s up to the manufacturers to define the opportunities and build a cohesive understanding of what may just become the next disruptive technology.