7. ARM Pushes Into The Server Business
According to Gartner, 98.6 percent of the servers shipped worldwide in the third quarter of 2012 were based on the tried-and-true x86-compatible processors.
2012 saw the move by ARM-based servers into the data center. The new servers, including models from Penguin Computing and Dell, followed HP's 2011 lead to test whether businesses would consider ARM-based servers as an alternative to their Intel-based and AMD-based models.
Meanwhile, several members of the OpenStack cloud community in July collaborated to make an ARM server-based cloud available for free test deployments, but not yet for production runs of cloud applications.
ARM's attraction lies in its power consumption, which is a fraction of that of traditional server processors. And while existing applications need to be rewritten for ARM-based servers, ARM prophets point out that many applications destined for the platform have yet to be written, and that existing programming tools cover ARM.
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