Re: It is almost certain now, INTEL will have 64bit x86 !!

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_istop.com)
Date: 02/24/04 

Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 17:34:38 -0500

Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy wrote:
> The apparent need for all applications and all systems to be 64bit was
> a marketing campaign of Digitals, it was mostly rubbish.

Response is either of:
I thought we all agreed Digital didn't have marketing ?
*or*
Yes, Digital's marketing was rubbish.

> You seem to have missed the point, no one is interested in very large
> Linux boxes or very large Windows boxes and they are also not going
> to create clusters these smaller systems

Folks went for a gazillion small linux boxes because, despite the much higher
maintenance headaches, it came out cheaper than paying for fewer larger boxes
with proprietary OS. But the minute Linux starts to scale to bigger machines,
it is to their advantage to get those bigger boxes and use fewer of them.
Software licensing for the OS remains cheap, and they reduce the management
headaches of having so many machines.

As far as windows is concerned, folsk want to run each application on a
different machine because of the nature of the software. It is the cost of
being the white sheep following everyone else "to be compatible".

Someone else wrote:
> > The large SQL Server market does exist. HP is happily selling Integrity
> > servers running Windows to customers.

Sure HP will happily sell such a beats. But why would anyone want to pay for
this ? I suspect that so far, almost all who have implemented Windows on IA64
didn't have to pay for hardware or software because HP and Intel desperatly
want reference sites.

But the minute HP and INtel stop giving away IA64 systems, then the real
business decisions start to happen. And normal customers won't choose IA64 for
windows. They chose windows to be compatible and to have access to all the
8086 software. Running windows on IA64 goes against all the reasons people
chose Windows.

Back to Andrew:
> unlikely to drop Itanium, it would be rather like Turkeys voting
> for Christmas/Thanksgiving.... how long Intel
> will continue to fund Itanium

I am sure that Carly and Grove had some really sweet pillow talk over this
issue and that they have a plan to get out of this quagmire whilst saving both
faces (and Carly's hair, of course)
And Carly would have known that if AMD succeeded in releasing a 64 bit 8086,
that Intel would have to follow, but until this happened, she had to keep the
IA64 option open.

What I find interesting is that Carly launched the "integrity" line at a time
where she would have known for sure that Intel was to release the 64 bit 8086.
She could have canned IA64 right then and there, and alleviate the need to
support this unpopular platform for 5 years. But that would have required
Intel to publicly confirm it was working on the 64 bit 8086.

So, it looks like Carly, in order to save her image and hairdo, will start to
sell IA64 machines to customers for a couple of years even though it forces HP
to support yet another plaform for many years to come. But in the short term,
it avoid Carly having to give bad news and a few very bad quarters. Unveiling
new products is always welcomed by Wall Street Casino analysts.

The big question is whether HP will bother with continuing the port of Tru64
to IA64 and instead just focus on porting it to 8086.

Relevant Pages

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