Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

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Doug, Re: That's why Intel simply hasn't bothered to provide such support yet, even though they are desperate for Itanium to take off.

That's a mischaracterization on your part. Intel is not "desperate" for Itanium to take off. They understand what the market requires, and they are meeting those requirements, one at a time. The first milestone was making IPF competitive in the HPC market. Check. The second one now is to fight for market share among enterprise class applications, such as OLTP, ERP, and financial. For all intents and purposes, they are already successful here, but there is obviously much more growth available. On the horizon stands an even more lucrative mid-tier market, filled with 4-16 processor multi-purpose servers. Intel will target this this year and next. The workstation market needs additional infrastructure yet, so it doesn't make sense to put resources here prematurely. I'm thinking a better time would be in 2005. By 2007 when Intel launches Tukwila, IPF will have the software and infrastructure to satisfy most of the server and workstation markets, and Tukwila will be the CPU to start scooping up the remaining share.