Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[aixman]

chipguy - OTOH, the growth in native
AMD64 software will be very slow IMO because ISVs will be
sorely tempted to skip the time and expense of creating and
supporting a separate distribution for AMD64 because the
standard 32 bit x86 version runs so well on Opteron.

And that is a very good thing! Recompiling the code in 64 bits just for the sake of it when there is no need for larger address space is counterproductive. So such applications should and will stay 32 bit for a forseeable future.

IA64, on the other hand, can't do this. ISVs will have to go 64 bit regardless of the fact whether there are any benefits or not. And that is why Intel is forced to pay for the porting effort from 32 to 64 bits.