chipguy, there is absolutely nothing stopping IBM and Sun from making $25K per cpu servers based on Opteron. Just wait another 6-10 months.
Btw, next year (if I'm not mistaken) Opteron will start sampling in dual-core chips. Heading for 2005 server sales. That will make it possible to make regular ATX boards for 4P Opteron workstations. Can you remind me when dual-core Itanium will ship and will it fit in the regular PC tower?