Sgolds -
Elmer, UpNDown, on HP, Compaq & Itanium: Your discussion misses a couple of important points. HP is codeveloper and co-owner of Itanium, and Compaq is part of HP. In other words, they don't need Intel in order to keep developing Itanium as their high end product.
I don't know the details but I wouldn't assume HP is co-owner with equal and independent rights. Besides, who's going to manufacture it?
Something that I post occasionally but no one seems to get it: HP does not want Itanium on the desktop, they want A64 or similar.
I wasn't aware that you had access to HP's long range plan. What other secrets can you share?