kpf -
Now, EL-32 shows X86-performance level of Xeon 1,6 for the fastest available Itanium-model. (And Xeon 1,6 is not exactly a top 32-bit performer) Actually a Pentium3-based Xeon 1,2 is (way) faster.
So where you go with EL-32 is from PII to PIII level X86-performance; but not anywhere close to current performance levels.
However, at least it makes Itanium useable for practical purposes, so it might help a lil bit.
Your response is a little confusing, but here I will weigh in with my opinion:
No one implements Itanium to primarily run x86 applications. However, Itanium will reach consideration for a much wider market if it can do a decent job of running secondary x86 applications. For instance, the server's primary job may be running a database backend in native IPF, but the IT personnel still need a reliable console to integrate the machine with an assortment of network connections. This would include Win32-based configuration programs, for instance.
(Any critical x86 applications would be run on the x86 server on the next rack.)
A 1.6GHz Xeon equivalent is plenty fast for this secondary purpose. The performance of EL-32 answers the critics for this issue.
The question that comes next is this: How reliable is it? A crash when running some obscure configuration script won't be acceptable to the market. Like all complex software meant to handle the general case of unknowable software applications (such as all Microsoft platforms), we won't know this until there is sufficient exposure in the field.
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