Compaq co-founder heads up new company selling Crusoe/Debian dense servers

– by Tina Gasperson –
RLX Technologies, led by CEO Gary Stimac (co-founder of Compaq) announced today that it is launching a new line of servers that will make use of the Transmeta Crusoe processor and the Linux kernel.
RLX is designing an entire line of server products that will run on Red Hat and Debian. According to the RLX Technologies Web site, the company’s target audience will initially be Internet Data Center customers “in the XSP space” — meaning application and Internet service providers.

A publicist for the company confirmed that there are no products available yet. The new servers will roll out sometime in the first half of 2001. “They are in alpha-testing with the manufacturer,” said Vyonne Donaldson. RLX has not released the name of the company it is working with to produce the machines, but Donaldson said that information would be forthcoming.

The “triple-threat” combination of low power requirements (due to the Crusoe processor), low space requirements, and lower price due to the use of Linux, promises to make RLX a strong competitor in the Web server market, and it is this holy trinity that makes RLX unique, because while other companies use dense server technology and offer Linux operating systems, no one else is selling Crusoe-based servers.

Other companies already involved in the ultra dense server arena include Compaq (RLX CEO Stimac’s old haunt), with its ProLiant DL360 whose users have a choice between NT, Linux, Novell, and SCO Unix; VA Linux (ed. note: VA Linux owns Newsforge) with its Linux-based 2U architecture, and Dell, with its PowerApp line.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.