It looks like Tyan is getting into the server business. Their hot new 4-proc Opteron motherboard just started shipping, and they’re going down the same road as Supermicro, selling motherboards as well as bare-bones servers based on the motherboards.

By and large, this is a good thing–this class of system tends to be a bit better-integrated then the usual generic white box rackmount server. I’m still waiting for someone to put a decent managed power supply into a cheap server, though. Intel’s had specs for extending IPMI into power supplies for years, but no one really seems to care enough. Since power supplies are the flakiest component in most systems, anything that can be done to improve their reliability would be great. Even if it’s just giving a few hours’ warning before the power supply dies.