RLX strips down the server
- Article 14 of 77
- Information Age, July 2001
RLX Technologies is hoping that a combination of smaller computers and a far smaller power consumption will be enough to persuade web hosts and data centres to choose its products over standard Intel-based servers.
Not many companies these days appeal to patriotism in order to get their countrymen to buy their products, but that has not deterred Gary Stimac, CEO of server start-up RLX Technologies. “It's clearly your patriotic duty to buy RLX System web servers,” he says, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, to his fellow Americans.
Stimac, widely considered as the original founder of Compaq's Server and Systems business, is undoubtedly ambitious. He claims, for example, that California's electricity crisis could be alleviated by companies purchasing RLX's low-power consumption servers instead of standard Compaq boxes. However, he may need to devise an alternative marketing ploy for the European market.
RLX's main product, the RLX System 324, is a rack-mountable server 'blade', a computer where the components that are not required for serving data have been removed to make it as small, cheap and energy-efficient as possible. The server is based on Transmeta's Intel-compatible Crusoe microprocessor, which Transmeta claims consumes only a tenth of the power of Intel chips. Up to 336 of RLX's server blades can fit into a rack that would normally accommodate 42 Intel-based blades, Stimac says, and its 15-watt power requirement means it needs 18-times fewer fans to cool the servers.
A recent law suit filed by PC and server giant Compaq against RLX (settled out of court in April 2001) did not stop investors pumping $40 million into a second round of funding in February 2001. RLX was further boosted in 2001 by systems giant IBM's decision to resell the start-up's servers.
Nevertheless, pitting itself against the established Intel-based server market will not be easy, particularly if RLX loses its uniqueness when competitors such as Amphus start to produce their own Crusoe-based servers. But RLX is planning to start selling its servers in the US before the end of the year and in Europe during 2002, which will put it well ahead of such competitors. Stimac will need to make the most of this headstart and any patriotism he can call on.