Microsot kills XP on Itanic

From: John Smith (a_at_nonymous.com)
Date: 01/08/05 

Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 15:04:18 -0500

Itanic to be high-cost low-volume chip until Intel kills it.

Shoulda kept Alpha - no porting costs, no 3 years of delays in pushing ahead
with important new features the VMS engineers could have been working on.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/01/07/02NNitanium_1.html

Microsoft nixes XP for Itanium
Move seen as final nail in Itanium 2 for workstations coffin

By Joris Evers
January 07, 2005

Marking the death of Itanium within workstations, Microsoft has said it will
cease offering a version of Windows XP for Intel's Itanium 2 processor.

The move comes after several hardware providers ceased producing
workstations with the chip. It essentially signifies the end for Itanium 2
in Windows-based workstations and comes after major hardware vendors
abandoned the 64-bit chip for use in workstations.

Going forward, Microsoft will focus on processors with 64-bit extensions for
use in workstations, a company spokeswoman said. After several delays, final
versions of Windows for 32-bit processors with 64-bit extensions are due in
the first half of this year.

"Microsoft believes Windows for Itanium-based systems is a stronger offering
in the high-end server market," the spokeswoman said. "For the mainstream
server and workstation markets, however, we believe we can best serve
customer needs with Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition and Windows XP
Professional x64 Edition." Microsoft uses "x64" to indicate versions of
Windows for processors with 64-bit extensions.

Workstations are high-performance desktop computers often used by designers
and engineers, as well as in video production environments. Processors with
64-bit extensions, as opposed to the Itanium processor, are x86 processors
that are capable of 64-bit computing and can also run applications written
for the 32-bit processors used in most PCs today.

Intel supports Microsoft discontinuing Windows XP for Itanium, officially
called Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003.

"We're aware of Microsoft's plans and agree with their priorities and
direction," said Erica Fields, an Intel spokeswoman. "The workstation market
really has never been a main focus for the Itanium. Xeon with 64-bit
capabilities really provides the best overall price performance for the
general workstation market."

Hewlett-Packard, the last remaining major workstation vendor to sell
Itanium-based workstations, stopped selling the systems in September 2004,
citing less than favorable market conditions. HP had been selling two
Itanium 2-based workstation models since April 2003. Dell pulled its Itanium
workstations off the market before HP did.

Because nobody was selling the software, Microsoft's retiring of Windows XP
for Itanium is no great surprise, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst
at research company Insight 64.

"It has been increasingly obvious over the past year that Itanium is moving
more and more into the mid-to-high-end server space and away from low-end
servers and desktops," Brookwood said.

64-bit processors offer users greater computing power, as systems process
more data per clock cycle and use more memory. Advanced Micro Devices'
Athlon64 and Opteron processors, as well as Intel's Xeon processors,
currently support 64-bit extensions.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: FW: OT: Microsoft drop more Itanic support
    ... > isn't strategic or making enough money for MS to bother with. ... > end, if MS could make tons of money and grow Windows on IA64, it would ... Microsoft needed Itanium to give it the scalability on paper. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Microsoft Joins the Battle for Itanium
    ... Microsoft uses Longhorn to promote Itanium ... Longhorn Server, part of a renewed marketing effort for Windows on the ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: AMD64 sales figures
    ... MS. Microsoft will not support a different 64 bit ... > gave Intel the choice, support AMD's instruction set, or do without Windows. ... So the work for Itanium ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: It is almost certain now, INTEL will have 64bit x86 !!
    ... Doesn't Windows on Alpha ring a bell? ... > Stop looking at Microsoft's early 90s strategy to divine what they what ... Microsoft needs a large SMP capable version of Windows and 64-bit ... Itanium is the processor capable of that. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Performance Issues: Network Load Balancing?
    ... Yes, The server and all workstations are patched with the latest updates, ... Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp. ... Windows IP Configuration ... Ethernet adapter Server Local Area Connection: ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)