Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

• Revenue was $52.9 billion and increased 7% (up 10% in constant currency)
• Operating income was $22.4 billion and increased 10% (up 15% in constant currency)
• Net income was $18.3 billion and increased 9% (up 14% in constant currency)
• Diluted earnings per share was $2.45 and increased 10% (up 14% in constant currency)

"The world's most advanced AI models are coming together with the world's most universal user interface - natural language - to create a new era of computing," said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. "Across the Microsoft Cloud, we are the platform of choice to help customers get the most value out of their digital spend and innovate for this next generation of AI."

LattePanda launched the powerful and hackable single board server, the LattePanda Sigma. With its super computing power, this device opens up endless possibilities for tech enthusiasts, developers, small businesses & enterprises. With its innovative design and unique features, the LattePanda Sigma is poised to redefine the world of single board servers and drive innovation to new heights.

The LattePanda Sigma is powered by the 13th-generation Intel Core i5-1340P Rapter Lake (12-Core, 16-Thread) processor and features Intel Iris Xe Graphics, providing optimal graphics performance. Its optimized power consumption minimizes power usage by almost 50%, making it an eco-friendly choice. With 16 GB of high-speed Dual-Channel LPDDR5-6400 MHz RAM, the LattePanda Sigma can handle even the most demanding tasks with ease, making it perfect for graphic design, gaming, and video editing.

Intel has been pulling the plug on most of its non-core businesses, including Intel Optane, Intel network switches, and most lately, Intel 5G modems, now it is time to say goodbye to Intel's server building business, selling it to MiTAC, a parent company to Tyan.

While Intel was never a big player in the complete server system hardware market, it has, or rather had, a decent product lineup. Nevertheless, the company is following its IDM 2.0 strategy laid down by Pat Gelsinger, who took the reins as the CEO back in 2021 and made the decision to sell off its Data Center Solutions Group (DSG).

All eyes - especially investors' eyes - are on Intel's data center business today. Intel's Sandra Rivera, Greg Lavender and Lisa Spelman hosted a webinar focused on the company's Data Center and Artificial Intelligence business unit. They offered a big update on Intel's latest market forecasts, hardware plans and the way Intel is empowering developers with software.

Executives dished out updates on Intel's data center business for investors. This included disclosures about future generations of Intel Xeon chips, progress updates on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids) and demos of Intel hardware tackling the competition, heavy AI workloads and more.

Xeon Roadmap Roll Call
Among Sapphire Rapids, Emerald Rapids, Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids, there is a lot going on in the server CPU business. Here's your Xeon roadmap updates in order of appearance:

Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in high-performance servers, server motherboards, and workstations, today announced new GIGABYTE servers for the AMD Ryzen 7000 series processor that are highly cost-effective, high performing, and enterprise feature rich. The line that separated data centers from personal users is not so clear because modern desktop processors have a respectable CPU core count and impressive multi-threading performance, laying the foundation for infrastructure that is highly manageable, scalable, and efficient. Installing a consumer CPU platform into an enterprise rack solution provides a low-cost barrier to entry-level servers that are typically used for dedicated hosting, cloud gaming, code development, and content creation.

Of the four new 1U GIGABYTE servers, the E133-C10 is a short-depth edge server, whereas the R133-C10, R133-C11, and R133-C13 are traditional rack servers. This spectrum of entry-level servers allows for excellent price points to be reached with each model having its unique advantage whether that be the need for dual 10GbE ports or support for a dual-slot GPU. On the more budget friendly side are the E133-C10 and R133-C10 servers that are very similar and have been designed to support an AMD Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" series processor up to 105 W TDP. Conversely, the R133-C11 and R133-C13 have additional support for the full spectrum of processors up to 170 W TDP and a power delivery system for a discrete GPU, so they will be used for 3D modeling, machine learning, VDI, and more. Last, each server comes with a 80+ Platinum rated power supply, and buyers can talk to our sales if they prefer a 80+ Titanium unit. Because this is a low power server it will surely to be deployed in homes, offices, and colocation centers.

As we close in on 15 years since the release of Battlefield 1943, and Bad Company 1 & 2, we are announcing that their journey is coming to an end. Starting April 28 2023, Battlefield 1943, and Battlefield: Bad Company 1 & 2 will be removed from digital storefronts and you will no longer be able to purchase them.

This is in preparation for the retirement of the online services for these titles which will happen on December 8 2023. For Bad Company 1 and 2, you can still continue playing them and use their respective offline features, such as the single player campaign. You can also read our FAQ and Service Updates for further information on the retirement of online services.

Update 14:17 UTC: EA updated their press release this morning, to clarify that the inclusion of Mirror's Edge was an error. They stated via Twitter: "We currently have no plans to remove Mirror's Edge from digital storefronts."

ASUS today announced its participation in NVIDIA GTC, a developer conference for the era of AI and the metaverse. ASUS will offer comprehensive NVIDIA-certified server solutions that support the latest NVIDIA L4 Tensor Core GPU—which accelerates real-time video AI and generative AI—as well as the NVIDIA BlueField -3 DPU, igniting unprecedented innovation for supercomputing infrastructure. ASUS will also launch the new ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 OLED laptop with the NVIDIA RTX 3000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU for mobile creative professionals.

Purpose-built GPU servers for generative AI
Generative AI applications enable businesses to develop better products and services, and deliver original content tailored to the unique needs of customers and audiences. ASUS ESC8000 and ESC4000 are fully certified NVIDIA servers that support up to eight NVIDIA L4 Tensor Core GPUs, which deliver universal acceleration and energy efficiency for AI with up to 2.7X more generative AI performance than the previous GPU generation. ASUS ESC and RS series servers are engineered for HPC workloads, with support for the NVIDIA Bluefield-3 DPU to transform data center infrastructure, as well as NVIDIA AI Enterprise applications for streamlined AI workflows and deployment.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for Cloud, AI/ML, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing the latest addition to its revolutionary ultra-high performance, high-density petascale class all-flash NVMe server family. Supermicro systems in this high-performance storage product family will support the next-generation EDSFF form factor, including the E3.S and E1.S devices, in form factors that accommodate 16- and 32 high-performance PCIe Gen 5 NVMe drive bays.

The initial offering of the updated product line will support up to one-half of a petabyte of storage space in a 1U 16 bay rackmount system, followed by a full petabyte of storage space in a 2U 32 bay rackmount system for both Intel and AMD PCIe Gen 5 platforms. All of the Supermicro systems that support either the E1.S or E3.s form factors enable customers to realize the benefits in various application-optimized servers.

AIC today announced its EB202-CP is ready to support newly launched 4th Gen AMD EPYC Embedded 9004 processors. By leveraging the five-year product longevity supported by AMD EPYC Embedded processors, EB202-CP provides customers with stable and long-term support. AIC and AMD will join forces to showcase EB202-CP at Embedded World in AMD stand No. 2-411 from 14th to 16th March, 2023 in Nuremberg, Germany.

AIC EB202-CP, a 2U rackmount server designed for AI and edge appliances, is powered by the newly released 4th Gen AMD EPYC Embedded processors. Featuring the world's highest-performing x86 processor and PCIe 5.0 ready, the 4th Gen AMD EPYC Embedded processors enable low TCO and delivers leadership energy efficiency as well as state-of-the-art security, optimized for workloads across enterprise and edge. EB202-CP, with 22 inch in depth, supports eight front-serviceable and hot-swappable E1.S/ E3.S and four U.2 SSDs. By leveraging the features of the 4th Gen AMD Embedded EPYC processors, EB202-CP is well suited for broadcasting, edge and AI applications, which require greater processing performance and within the most efficient, space-saving format.

Server and workstation cooling solutions provider Dynatron unveiled the L35, a unique all-in-one liquid CPU cooler meant for 2U rackmount cases. The cooler features a 240 mm x 80 mm radiator, which relies on three 80 mm fans in a row for ventilation. The radiator itself is a chunky 44 mm-thick. The cooler uses a pump located at the radiator, while the thin water-block doesn't have any cables going to it, just the coolant tubes. Each of the three included 80 mm fans are data-center grade, turn at speeds of up to 8,000 RPM, pushing up to 115.61 CFM of airflow, at 64.4 dBA of noise output. Among the CPU socket types supported are Intel LGA2066, LGA1700, AMD AM5, and AM4. Dynatron claims that the cooler is capable of handling thermal loads of up to 250 W.

Google is "positioning itself as a go-to tech partner for publishers of live-service video games" by offering its cloud gaming technology to outside companies. This is an interesting statement regarding the future trajectory of its cloud gaming infrastructure, given the scarcity of updates since the January 2023 shutdown of the Cloud giant's Stadia gaming platform.

Google Cloud's director of Game Industry solutions, Jack Buser, was interviewed by Axios in an article published earlier this week, he outlined the company's ambitions to move forward in a post-Stadia world. Google Cloud is seeking partnership with publishers, its technology is being offered to prospective clients as a support platform for live-service games. "Google is absolutely committed to games that are such a big part of our messaging," Buser said. "When we made the decision with Stadia, we were just like, look, we are committed to games as an industry."

According to TrendForce's latest survey of the server market, many cloud service providers (CSPs) have begun large-scale investments in the kinds of equipment that support artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. This development is in response to the emergence of new applications such as self-driving cars, artificial intelligence of things (AIoT), and edge computing since 2018. TrendForce estimates that in 2022, AI servers that are equipped with general-purpose GPUs (GPGPUs) accounted for almost 1% of annual global server shipments. Moving into 2023, shipments of AI servers are projected to grow by 8% YoY thanks to ChatBot and similar applications generating demand across AI-related fields. Furthermore, shipments of AI servers are forecasted to increase at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2022 to 2026.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for Cloud, AI/ML, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing the latest addition to its revolutionary ultra-high performance, high-density petascale class all-flash NVMe server family. Supermicro systems in this high performance storage product family will support the next-generation EDSFF form factor, including the E3.S and E1.S devices, in form factors that accommodate 16- and 32 high-performance PCIe Gen 5 NVMe drive bays.

The initial offering of the updated product line will support up to one-half of a petabyte storage space in a 1U 16 bay rackmount system, followed by a fully petabyte storage space in 2U 32 bay rackmount system for both Intel and AMD PCIe Gen 5 platforms.

The four major North American cloud service providers (CSPs) have made cuts to their server procurement quantities for this year because of economic headwinds and high inflation. Turning to server OEMs such as Dell and HPE, they are observed to have scaled back the production of server motherboards at their ODM partners. Given these developments, TrendForce now projects that global server shipments will grow by just 1.31% YoY to 14.43 million units for 2023. This latest figure is a downward correction from the earlier estimation. The revisions that server OEMs have made to their outlooks on shipments shows that the demand for end products has become much weaker than expected. They also highlight factors such as buyers of enterprise servers imposing a stricter control of their budgets and server OEMs' inventory corrections.

Synology today announced the addition of RackStation RS2423+ and RS2423RP+ to the versatile and cost-effective Plus series systems. The 2U 12-bay RS2423(RP)+ are ideal data management and backup solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as branch offices. "With strong performance out of the box and flexible configuration and expansion options, these servers are the perfect on-prem storage solution for growing businesses," said Peggy Weng, Product Manager at Synology.

Offering a performance increase over its predecessor with sequential read/write speeds of over 3,500/1,700 MB/s, the RS2423(RP)+ packs a punch. This device features built-in 10GbE connectivity along with 2 x 1GbE ports with support for additional 10/25GbE networking. The 12-bays of RS2423(RP)+ support up to 216 TB of total storage capacity and can be expanded to 24 bays with a RX1223RP Expansion Unit for up to 432 TB of storage.

AAEON, a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade server solutions, has announced the release of the ZEUS-WHI0 4U Rackmount Whitely Platform Server System. The ZEUS-WHI0 is AAEON's first system-level solution to utilize a 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processor (formerly Ice Lake-SP). With up to 40 cores and 80 threads, this platform provides server-grade power while also benefitting from peripheral technologies such as Intel Crypto Acceleration, Intel VT-x, and Intel AES-NI.

Equipped with seven PCIe slots with up to Gen 4 speed capability, the ZEUS-WHI0 is exceptionally expandable, making it capable of supporting up to four GPU cards for AI acceleration and enhanced graphics realization. Further to this, the ZEUS-WHI0 also supports eight 2.5" or 3.5" HDD via two 4-bay inputs for storage, alongside an additional M.2 2280 M-Key for PCIe [x4].

AMD and Arm have been gaining up on Intel in the server CPU market in the past few years, and the margins of the share that AMD had won over were especially large in 2022 as datacenter operators and server brands began finding that solutions from the number-2 maker growing superior to those of the long-time leader, according to Frank Kung, DIGITIMES Research analyst focusing primarily on the server industry, who anticipates that AMD's share will well stand above 20% in 2023, while Arm will get 8%.

Prices are one of the three major drivers that resulted in datacenter operators and server brands switching to AMD. Comparing server CPUs from AMD and Intel with similar numbers of cores, clockspeed, and hardware specifications, the price tags of most of the former's products are at least 30% cheaper than the latter's, and the differences could go as high as over 40%, Kung said.

Since 2022, DRAM suppliers have been adjusting their product mixes so as to assign more wafer input to server DRAM products while scaling back the wafer input for mobile DRAM products. This trend is driven by two reasons. First, the demand outlook is bright for the server DRAM segment. Second, the mobile DRAM segment was in significant oversupply during 2022. Moving into 2023, the projections on the growth of smartphone shipments and the increase in the average DRAM content of smartphones remain quite conservative. Therefore, DRAM suppliers intend to keep expanding the share of server DRAM in their product mixes. According to TrendForce's analysis on the distribution of the DRAM industry's total bit output for 2023, server DRAM is estimated to comprise around 37.6%, whereas mobile DRAM is estimated to comprise around 36.8%. Hence, server DRAM will formally surpass mobile DRAM in terms of the portion of the overall supply within this year.

Getac has today announced the expansion of its flagship X600 rugged mobile workstation range with the launch of the X600 Server and X600 Pro-PCI. The new models will sit alongside the recently launched X600 and X600 Pro, creating a comprehensive lineup of rugged mobile workstations that are purpose-built to meet the demands of professionals working in challenging industries, such as defence, manufacturing and oil & gas.

X600 Server: The fully rugged mobile server
The all-new Getac X600 Server delivers a powerful commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) rugged mobile server that can be folded to a slim profile for easy transportation.

Rambus Inc., a premier chip and silicon IP provider making data faster and safer, today announced the availability of its new 6400 MT/s DDR5 Registering Clock Driver (RCD) and sampling to the major DDR5 memory module (RDIMM) manufacturers. With a 33% increase in data rate and bandwidth over Gen 1 4800 MT/s solutions, the Rambus Gen 3 6400 MT/s DDR5 RCD enables a new level of main memory performance for data center servers. Delivering industry-leading latency and power, it offers optimized timing parameters for improved RDIMM margins.

"Data center workloads have an insatiable thirst for greater memory bandwidth and capacity, and our mission is to advance the performance of server memory solutions that meet this need for each new server platform generation," said Sean Fan, chief operating officer at Rambus. "We were first in the industry to 5600 MT/s, and now we have raised the bar with our Gen 3 DDR5 RCD capable of 6400 MT/s to support a new generation of RDIMMs for server main memory."

Facing global economic headwinds, the four major North American cloud service providers (CSPs) have scaled back their server procurement quantities for 2023 and could make further downward corrections in the future. Meta is the leader among the four in terms of server demand reduction, followed by Microsoft, Google, and AWS. TrendForce has lowered the YoY growth rate of their total server procurement quantity for this year from the original projection of 6.9% to the latest projection of 4.4%. With CSPs cutting demand, global server shipments are now estimated to grow by just 1.87% YoY for 2023. Regarding the server DRAM market, prices there are estimated to drop by around 20~25% QoQ for 1Q23 as CSPs' downward corrections exacerbate the oversupply situation.

Looking at the four CSPs individually, the YoY decline of Meta's server procurement quantity has been widened to 3.0% and could get larger. The instability of the global economy remains the largest variable for all CSPs. Besides this, Meta has also encountered a notable obstacle in expanding its operation in Europe. Specifically, its data center in Denmark has not met the regional standard for emissions. This issue is expected to hinder its progress in setting up additional data centers across the EU. Moreover, businesses related to e-commerce account for about 98% of Meta's revenue. Therefore, the decline in e-commerce activities amidst the recent easing of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Meta's growth momentum. Additionally, Meta's server demand has been affected by the high level of component inventory held by server ODMs.

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced its 64 GB, 32 GB, and 16 GB Server Premier DDR5 4800MT/s Registered DIMMs have been validated on the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processor (formerly codenamed Sapphire Rapids). For over 35 years Kingston has been the memory brand trusted by leading server manufacturers and the world's largest data centers. Server Premier is Kingston's industry standard memory solution sold by specification for use in white-box servers, and is platform validated and qualified by leading motherboard/system manufacturers. Featuring a locked BOM (Bill of Materials) to provide a consistent brand and revision of primary components (including DRAM, register, PMIC, SPD hub, thermal sensors, and PCB), all Kingston server memory solutions are 100% tested and undergo a rigorous dynamic burn-in process designed to catch early-life failures at the factory.

Intel's 4th Gen Xeon Scalable Processor is their first to support next-generation DDR5 server-class memory and features eight memory channels, arranged in up to two DIMMs per channel, or 16 DIMMs per CPU socket. At 4800MT/s, each DDR5 Registered DIMM provides a peak bandwidth of 38.4 GB/s, which when grouped in multi-channel configurations provides a marked increase in performance over DDR4-based servers. DDR5 introduces advanced features for a more reliable and more efficient memory subsystem, including on-die ECC (ODECC), double the number of banks and double the burst length, improved refreshes, inclusion of a power management circuit (PMIC), additional temperature sensors, decision feedback equalization (DFE), and dual independent 32-bit subchannels (40-bit for ECC).

Dell Technologies expands the industry's top selling server portfolio, with an additional 13 next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers, designed to accelerate performance and reliability for powerful computing across core data centers, large-scale public clouds and edge locations. Next-generation rack, tower and multi-node PowerEdge servers, with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, include Dell software and engineering advancements, such as a new Smart Flow design, to improve energy and cost efficiency. Expanded Dell APEX capabilities will help organizations take an as-a-Service approach, allowing for more effective IT operations that make the most of compute resources while minimizing risk.

"Customers come to Dell for easily managed yet sophisticated and efficient servers with advanced capabilities to power their business-critical workloads," said Jeff Boudreau, president and general manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. "Our next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers offer unmatched innovation that raises the bar in power efficiency, performance and reliability while simplifying how customers can implement a Zero Trust approach for greater security throughout their IT environments."

TYAN, an industry-leading server platform design manufacturer and a MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation subsidiary, today introduced 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based server platforms highlighting built-in accelerators to improve performance across the fastest-growing workloads in AI, analytics, cloud, storage, and HPC.

"Greater availability of new technology like 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors continue to drive the changes in the business landscape", said Danny Hsu, Vice President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation's Server Infrastructure Business Unit. "The advances in TYAN's new portfolio of server platforms with features such as DDR5, PCIe 5.0 and Compute Express Link 1.1 are bringing high levels of compute power within reach from smaller organizations to data centers."

AIC Inc., (from now on referred to as"AIC"), a leading provider in enterprise storage and server solutions, today unveiled its new server systems powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (formerly codenamed Sapphire Rapids). The new server platforms are designed to accelerate performance across the most in-demand workloads that businesses rely on including enterprise, storage, AI and HPC.

The newly launched AIC servers, SB102-HK, SB201-HK and HP202-KT, are designed to offer superior processing performance and energy efficiency by leveraging the innovative features of 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. With built-in accelerators, the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors optimize the utilization of CPU core resources and feature enhanced memory bandwidth with DDR5, advanced I/O with PCIe Gen 5 and Compute Express Link (CXL) 2.0/1.1, and the ability to accelerate PyTorch real-time inference performance by up to 10x using Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel AMX) compared to the previous generation. The new AIC servers are empowered by advanced security technologies from 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, allowing them to protect data and unlock new opportunities for business collaborations.