Alpha and sparc both had moderately affordable hardware (atx boards and such). Outside the geeks, what's the compelling story? I owned a couple of those devices, fact of the matter was you paid more to be on an isolated moderately performing island. To be interesting, you need an Atx board or something with a better chip at the same price or the whole thing has to be cheaper. Basically, when cell came out they should have put ps3 spec workstations on the market for $300 or maybe even less. One thing arm really does right is low cost.