Mikael> If Digital could start manufactoring lowcost motherboards
Mikael> (the cpu's are very affordably already), then Linux/Alpha
Mikael> could be a 'explosive' market..
To a good degree this is a chicken and egg problem (as usual): without
volume, prices are high and with high prices, volume remains low.
Having said that, it does look to me like a lot of vendors regard
non-x86 systems as cash cows. For example, as far as I know, no
vendor other than DEC offers systems with the price/performance ratio
of the XL266. I'd imagine that smaller companies have much lower
overheads than DEC, so beating the XL266 shouldn't be all that hard
(assuming all other things are equal, which may or may not be the
case).
My hope is that two things will happen: (a) really, really low-cost
Alpha boards start to get produced (e.g., by some Asian manufacturer)
and (b) at least one vendor starts selling Linux/Alpha boxes with the
same profit margins as for the x86 systems. Then we'd be talking
volume...
--david