How many current applications available for Alpha,
Tru64, Linux and VMS?
Give you a hint, more than a thousand .. more than
are available for Itanium.
Besides, the same applications and more will be available
on Willamette. Except for a very narrow market of folks
that would rather run a floating point intensive app on
a slower more expensive Itanium box versus a Linux or
Tru64 based Alpha... I can't see where Itanium gets its
initial market boost.
High-end commercial packages (SQL and the like) will run
faster on Willamette than Itanium... and the Willamette
quads should be cheaper than the Itanium quads (after
all, Willamette has to keep that Athlon at bay.. got to
love Athlon for all the fun it is having indirectly with
Itanium... just got to love it).
Got an idea that might help jump start Itanium.. since
it seems to want to enter a already established marketplace
and will be slower than shipping IA32 parts at the time,
power hungry (150 watts, ouch, ouch, ouch), EXPENSIVE...
that doesn't make for an interesting part. Maybe Intel
should take a clue from Microsoft when they had difficulty
getting Explorer to take off. Maybe Intel can "bundle"
Itanium in a server , essentially give the CPUs away and
just charge for memory and disks. That *should* work,
I don't know what else might... I do believe McKinley
will be a much better story at the end of next year. LG
claims 20-30 percent faster than the fastest shipping
RISC at the time, what a joker that Linley is...
Itanium ... all dressed up and no party to go to.
Rob |
