Eric,
All that development effort, time and money for no good reason.
You have just demonstrated that you don't have a clue about SledgeHammer, and based on this "knowledge", you are prepared to dismiss it.
Without a commitment from Microsoft I can't see a future for this chip.
You are still banking on this "commitment". Some software projects (Win2K), and even hardware designs (Merced) have a tendency to take the amount of time that's larger than the estimate by factor of 2 or 3.
The lack of Windows 2000 for Itanium will probably sink Itanium, because it will be beaten by Celeron in execution of 32 bit applications.
On the other hand, delayed Windows 2000 for Sledgehammer will be only a minor negative, since Sledgehammer will be able to run all the software in the world as well or better than any other processor available at that time.
The extra transistors just sucking up die space, increasing AMD's costs, lowering the "potential" profits.
The extra transistors on 386 did not lower Intel's profit. Increased execution speeds thanks to faster clock speed and wider data bus made it a winner even for the 16 bit applications (which happened to be the only applications available).
Sounds familiar?
The ugly duckling that Intel Architecture is has a tndency to stick around beyond anybody's expectations. Abandoning it is a risk.
If now is a good time to abandon the Intel architecture, Intel will benefit by it's departure. On the other hand, if the inertia of all these apps out there is too strong to overcome, AMD may be the winner, since in a year, it will be AMD who will have set the standards for the next 10 years of IA, or should we now call it AMD Architecture?
Joe |
