Any longs actually pleased about IA-32e?
As an investor again, finally, I can't really convince myself to be happy about this. Yeah, it legitimizes the platform, but with INTC apparently having a decent plan in place, do any of the AMD longs in here actually think of this as a good thing?
FYI - I'm gonna use X64 as my abbreviation from here on for Xeon 64-bit
short term (pre X64 availability) - I don't see why HP and/or Dell wouldn't just wait for Intel's X64. Sure, HP might have an Opteron system or two to placate the current customer demand, but roll out the "big guns" of the X64s when they're available. I'm sure INTC will put plenty of $ behind validation and testing to help HP out. Of course for Dell, we don't even need to discuss them anymore. Also, I'm not thinking that many companies who are in this market would think that the special-tax-year implications of a purchase now would override the benefit of waiting for the tried-and-true INTC solution (regardless of how *not* tried-and-true it may be - it's INTC, which carries a lot of psychological weight still)
medium term (X64s available) - Stocks and markets hate uncertainty. We have no idea how well these chips will or won't perform. We don't know how the market will react to the chips, or how fast drivers for AMD64 will be developed. So, this doesn't look particularly pleasing either. I also think that brand loyalty is more important than benchmarks to most companies.
long term (3 years +) - I actually agree wbmw's sentiments about there being a cost and performance cross over between Itanium and X64s (I think it was wbmw that wrote it). As porting to 64 bit gets more common, and managed code gets more common, there will be fewer and fewer ties to the past. If I understand correctly, Itanium solutions are pretty impressive when coded for properly. Compilers will also continue to get better of the next few years, assumedly.
The kicker will be some quasi-magical software or hardware inflection point, probably, similar to Windows 2000. People that needed NT 4 used it, no one else had enough of a reason to move. Win2k acted as a catalyst in that it lowered the activation energy required on both the consumers and developers' plates, and the rest is history. If Itanium in hardware, or an emulator in software, can produce another such catalyst, I could see the world going that way in 5 or 10 years.
But, that's all just my Chicken Little side of things. There are also positive aspects, but I'm having a bit of trouble seeing them as clearly. So.... are there AMD longs out there that are happier this week than last?
neye
AI
