Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[chipguy]

In fact, I'm here to tell you that I don't see a single consumer-/small-business-level binary
architecture that will have a longer longevity than AMD64.

I have yet to see an ISA execute a single instruction. Microprocessors execute instructions.
And microprocessors are ICs that are expensive to design and ever increasingly expensive
to fabricate. If AMD doesn't get much healthier soon AMD64 might be history in far less than
a decade. Or at least that which executes AMD64 instructions. The ISA manuals may live on
indefinitely. Like the PDP-11 and Transputer manuals on my bookshelf.

Now you know why the Linux leaders are so enamoured of it. A capable achitecture for the next decade.

Who are these leaders? IBM? It is grooming Linux for its high margin iron like z series and
POWER. Sun? It builds Xeon boxes to run Linux. HP or SGI? They are going IPF. Dell? We
just got their answer to the 64 bit question. Or do you mean the rank and file buyers and
users that go to Linux trade shows? Here's what they think:

http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/2003/january/best_of_show.html