On Monday, while IBM, on one hand, unveiled its new POWER7 processor, Intel, on the other, introduced the 9300 range of processors, and while these launches have spurred interest, experts feel that these have come at a time when the market for UNIX servers is steadily declining.

Also, the launches have come at a time when the third most important UNIX processor line, Sun Microsystems' SPARC, is going through a difficult time, mainly because of the takeover of Sun by Oracle.

IBM's POWER7 processor features as many as 8 cores, which run up-to 32 threads. Also, the new offering is equipped with latest memory optimization capacities, which is the capability to assign the on-chip cache to four cores, all the while turning the other four off in order to pull back power consumption.

Intel's Itanium 9300 processor, on the other hand, features four cores, which run up-to 8 threads a chip.

In December, IDC had reported that 2009's third-quarter saw a 23.4% fall in the UNIX server revenue, showing that the market for these is now gradually falling. At such a time, the launches have come under considerable question.