By contrast, "both Dell and industry pundits here agreed that not too many Itanium servers are likely to be sold this year"
biz.yahoo.com
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While Intel's first 64-bit processor has been highly anticipated, both Dell and industry pundits here agreed that not too many Itanium servers are likely to be sold this year.
"It is not going to be a significant part of the overall Dell server business" initially, Austin said during a presentation here.
Tough economic conditions and anticipation for Intel's follow-on 64-bit processor, named McKinley, have led some analysts to predict that Itanium servers will be used by many for software compatibility tests. Vendors will try their applications on the new hardware, see how it works out and then decide how much they should commit to Intel's 64-bit plans, both Dell executives and industry analysts here said.
"When times are tough economically, customers have to ask whether they want to spend money on something like this right now," Revellese noted.
Some customers, however, have been working hard preparing their Itanium systems for launch and working on application testing.
Gafar Lawal, the director of architecture for the U.S. technology group at investment bank Merrill Lynch in New York City, has been beta testing an Itanium system from HP.
"We've been running test applications [on SQL Server], getting ready for deployment," which could happen as early as the third quarter of this year, Lawal said.
Lawal, who manages Merrill Lynch's Windows-based network, said he's not worried about the number of applications currently available. As the Itanium platform progresses onto second-generation chips such as McKinley, plentiful applications will follow, he predicted.
Expected in early 2002, McKinley will further optimize the 64-bit Itanium family, according to Intel. |
