Sgolds: Essentially, Itanium is to HPQ as Sparc is to Sun. Looking ahead five years I expect Itanium to be essentially an HPQ product, in fact if not fully in name.
HPQ most recent market share of Itanium is about 50%. Not likely to grow with IBM and Dell's support. However you feel about the product it is shipping and works in some large critical applications. OEM's want to sell iron and services while playing golf ..