Opteron was only introduced in Q2 of 2003, while Itanium has been available from day one and before that, starting with a huge infrastructure, design win, time-to-market [validation!] and credibility advantage (since INTEL is already the NO.1 server processor supplier by a long shot).
I could continue this list forever, but if you can still not understand why Itanium´s progress is considered "dissapointing", while Opteron´s traction, after setting the industry standard for x86 based 64-bit volume server computing, is considered a surprise success, well, I can´t help it
Wow, so much sophistry in so few sentences.
1) The vast majority of IPF sales have been of the Madison
I2 which was released mid year.
2) The overwhelming majority if not every last one of those
IPF systems were bought to run 64 bits apps of which most
have only recently become available. If you don't understand
how software availability can constrain sales of the best
hardware then there is nothing more to say.
3) Opteron silicon has been in the hands of OEMs longer than
the McKinley, the original version of I2. AMD enthusiasts were
touting the availability of Opteron boards before the chip
was even commercially released.
4) Opteron fully taps into the huge mass of 32 bit x86 apps
and OSes available in the PC and Xeon server world.
Yet the best evidence suggests that the Opteron only sold
in about half the unit quantity of the big iron I2 chip with
a tiny fraction of its revenue. That is shocking compared
to the massive unit and revenue numbers that Xeons enjoy.
The headline should have read "AMD's 64 bit Xeon Killer
Sales Dismal"
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
