I knew you could do it. Turn dropping Itanium chipset into a positive.
It's not a positive for IPF. But it was largely predictable once IPF grew in sales and performance enough to threaten the viability of IBM's own high end processor business.
With the feature set Intel put into Montecito it was basically calling IBM out for a nasty fight for high end leadership. In such a fight no quarter is given and none is asked for so IBM's nascent IPF business was the first casualty.