This last week, I spent a bunch of time in a room with Andy Bechtolsheim. He brought along some of the new boxes he’s working on; some almost ready, some raw sheet-metal prototypes. I got some cool pix of a Thumper’s guts but they won’t let me run ’em. Anyhow, when you listen to Andy talk about these boxes, you realize that in their own way they’re beautiful. You have to watch it around him; if you ask a simple question like why one server’s I/O is surprisingly faster than another’s, you’re apt to get a 45-minute dissertation involving ten or fifteen pages’ worth of block diagrams (no, I’m not exaggerating). Anyhow, while they say the X64 boxes are our fastest-growing product line, I think that group’s feeling a little starved for love in among all the T2000 hoop-la. The marketing group sends me notes from time to time pointing to their news (for example a power calculator and a virtualization maniac), wondering if it’s bloggable. I keep telling them to grow their own bloggers, but they haven’t yet. Which is a pity, because what Andy’s doing makes a pretty compelling story.
