According to the writer of the article, Barcelona is a "solid improvement across the board" over AMD's current chips, and it should give the firm decisive advantages in the high-performance computing and multi-processor server markets.

With 2P, 4P I do agree and think it will dominate - Caneland\Tigerton should narrow the gap though.
I think 1P and desktop varients would(and should) edge current Conroes, even if just by a marginal gap.
When Penryn is out my guestimation is that they will perform toe-to-toe and that should be a nice battle to witness.