Re: AMD64 sales figures

From: Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy (Andrew_No.Harrison_No_at_nospamn.sun.com)
Date: 10/03/03 

Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 10:09:05 +0100

Keith Parris wrote:
> David Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote in message news:<3F7C1EBE.10004@tsoft-inc.com>...
>
>>http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11781
>>
>>Why Intel's Prescott will use AMD64 extensions
>
> ...
>
>>So, why is this again? Simple, MS. Microsoft will not support a different 64 bit
>>platform, and frankly I don't blame it, it costs a lot of money to do that. MS
>>gave Intel the choice, support AMD's instruction set, or do without Windows. MS
>>won that battle pretty handily.
>
>
> Why this doesn't make sense to me is that Microsoft has already had a
> 64-bit version of Windows for Itanium available for quite a while, and
> only recently added a 64-bit version for AMD. So the work for Itanium
> appears to have been done first, and the additional work for AMD done
> more recently. It sounds like the writer here missed the earlier
> Itanium release of Windows entirely.
>

But MS probably only wants one, having to maintain two 64bit versions
of Windows will cost MS more than only maintaining one.

No one including Intel thinks that there is a mass market for 64bit
desktop Itanium systems but MS make a big chunk of their revenues
from Desktop OS's and an even bigger chunk from Office which runs
on them.

Athlon-64 is a mass market 64 bit desktop processor and there is also
no doubt that it will be the market leader for 64bit Windows/Office
etc. It doesn't unless Prescott turns out to be 64bit have any
competition from Intel.

So what would you do if you were MS, go with the 64bit arch that
gives you 64bit destktop bragging rights and unit volumes (AMD)
and keep Itanium as well just for old times sake with Intel.
Or just support x86-64.

MS only needs one 64bit desktop architecture it doesn't need two.

Regards
Andrew Harrison

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