IBM: Software Prices Same for Dual-Core

IBM said Friday will not charge customers extra for software running on AMD or Intel dual-core processors. Citing the need for affordable prices in the low-end Windows and Linux market, IBM will charge the same price for dual-core software as its regular single-core licensing scheme.

Other software vendors are still undecided about how to classify dual-core systems, which contain two processor cores within a single chip.

"There is a debate in the industry right now over licensing. Some want to count sockets, others want to count cores. I believe that you will see different vendors going different ways. This will be favorable for consumers because they will be getting more horse power for same software charge," Mike Kahn Managing Director of The Clipper Group told BetaNews.

On Thursday, IBM unveiled a line up of AMD dual-core Opteron-based servers and workstations, including the IBM eServer 326 and IntelliStation A Pro 6217. The dual-core products are designed to accommodate multi-threaded applications that require high-performance computing.