Dear Snowrider2:
When Intel transitioned from P3 Xeon to P4 Xeon, it took more than 12 months. This is more like that transition as they are two different internal architectures. That means that the things that you assume is the same between two similar cores is violated with different ones. Second, the MBs that were not tested during Dempsey, are tested for the first time with Woodcrest. Woodcrest uses different VRM codes than P4 Xeons meaning that the MBs are new too. Then there are FB-DIMMs not used in the older servers. For these and other reasons, the full testing needs to be done. Thats typically about 12 months.
Another reason is that the 4S solution is missing like the P3->P4 Xeon transition.
Lastly, how quickly people forget. AMD had Athlon MP, a 2S version that gained a good following. Intel's Woodcrest is like that one, dual P2P FSBs with memory attached to the NB. It sold well even after the Opteron launch. So they had a presence in the server market and solid enough for people to try Opteron.
Pete
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