>In this case, a lot of people including Dell, agree with us. Or are you still trying to claim that Itanium is selling like hotcakes. No you say, but Merced will. If Intel really was confidant of that, why the backup plan at Yawmill. If your good, you don't need a backup. Did AMd have a backup for Athlon, or Hammer?<
AMD most certainly did have a backup plan for Athlon. It was called K6-2+. And they have a backup plan for Hammer. It is called Barton.
As for an alternative 64-bit architechture, AMD has licensed Alpha, but can't afford to develop it. By contrast, Intel can afford to develop backup architectures, and would be foolish not to. Make no mistake, IA64 will succeed, but perhaps not to Intel's liking. Transitioning IA64 to the desktop by 2006, as Intel intends, or even 2010, could be more than even Intel can achieve. It is likely, but by no means certain, that Intel will be forced to embrace x86-64 for the desktop (or their own incompatible extension to IA32), while successfully marketing IA64 in the server and workstation market. |
