Initially, IBM will offer the IntelliStation A Pro in a configuration pre-loaded with IBM will offer the A Pro preloaded with Red Hat Enterprise Workstation 3.0 for 32- and 64-bits. The workstation will also run SuSE's Linux at 32- and 64-bits and Microsoft's current Windows XP Professional at 32-bits. Windows support for 64-bit, however, will have to wait until later this year, when Microsoft's is expected to Windows 64-bit support will follow, when Microsoft ships its version of Windows XP for the Opteron later this year. In September 2003, Microsoft released a beta version of its Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems.
Both analysts expect that IBM's hardware rivals will follow with Opteron-based workstations of their own. Currently, both Hewlett-Packard and Sun have placed Opteron chips in some of the servers.
"There will be other people entering the market [with Opteron workstations]," said Ghatpande. "The processor offers a good value proposition."
IBM is taking a look at the way the market has responded to Opteron," added King. "It may be a bit of a roll of the dice, this first to market, but with Sun and HP on the Opteron bandwagon, IBM now has had a bit of a head start."
A single-processor IntelliStation A Pro with a 1.8GHz processor, a NVidia graphics card, and 1GB of memory will start at $2,619, according to IBM's Wineberg, but all but one of the A Pro's models will feature two Opterons and more memory.
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