Replies to post #3470 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Haddock]

So, basically, IBM released it now to prevent its current Intel server customers from freaking out

That's one way to interpret it :-)

Actually this has to be good news for Intel regardless. IBM support lots of different architectures and it would have been a blow to Intel if IA64 were really never to be one of them. There are clearly niches where Itanium has a convincing cost-performance story to tell, esp. once the large cache chips launch. Of course, by that time the competition (Power4, Opteron) will be faster and better too.

[sgolds]

On IBM/Itanium -

IBM waited until this stage to release its Itanium server because not enough software was available, Advani said. "Our customers told us early on that hardware without accompanying software is nothing more than a heater," Advani said.

Used to be that people said 'boat anchor'. LOL!

Anyhow, Opteron is the Xeon-killer, the Itanium market is too small to bother with...