I think it is more a situation where all AMD has is a hammer. So it is trying to sell it into different markets by pretending that each market segment is exactly like a nail.
It worked very well for Xeon. Opteron just wants to continue from where Xeon stops.
chipguy, I agree. I think we should stop comparing Opteron with Itanium, as they are targeting completely different markets, with very tiny intersection.
Of course, AMD has plans to target Itanium markets, but this not gonna happen in the next 6-10 months.