In '94-95, the alpha was miles beyond x86 in terms of processor. Even 2001, the alpha had some truly impressive features related to x86 but it mostly at the se

In '94-95, the alpha was miles beyond x86 in terms of processor. Even 2001, the alpha had some truly impressive features related to x86 but it mostly at the server integration level. By 2007, the writing was on the wall. Even by 2007 we struggled to replace a mature TruCluster with 8 large nodes with a linux cluster; IO performance and cluster capabilities were still pretty lackluster. After about 2008 I don't think Alpha was a viable alternative to anything.