AMD - Backing away from 64-bit servers - Hamsters now targeting the 32 bit desktop !!!
"But AMD executives said the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's first 64-bit chip, dubbed Claw Hammer, is aimed mainly at the high-end desktop and 32-bit server and workstation markets. "
Looks like the Hammer is already getting NAILED !!
Oh - Jack Robertson - you gotta BELIEVE HIM !!!
Intel finally unwraps the Itanium
By Jack Robertson, EBN
May 25, 2001 (1:02 PM)
URL: ebnews.com
After years of delay, Intel Corp. on Tuesday will formally introduce its 64-bit Itanium microprocessor, offering the high-end enterprise server sector its first look at a commodity-based architecture.
Several server OEMs, including Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, are expected to concurrently unveil systems using Intel's first 64-bit chip to penetrate the high-end enterprise server and workstation market.
Next week's event is a bit of an anticlimax given that Intel's Itanium has been on the market since January in a so-called “pilot launch.” Analysts said the upcoming launch is in part a publicity event to show off a core of server OEMs that have finally worked the Itanium chip into their new product lines.
The long delay has had a silver lining, however, by giving application software developers more time to write 64-bit programs to run on the new Intel chip. Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at InSight64, Saratoga, Calif., said Intel's Itanium strategy centers on running new 64-bit software applications, so several hundred new programs for Itanium are needed to make the chip credible.
The Itanium-and a successor code-named McKinley that will appear in 2003-are targeted at the entrenched 64-bit Unix-based servers and workstations of companies such as Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SGI, and Sun Microsystems.
Initially, Compaq, HP, and IBM will offer Itanium-based servers and workstations, as well as their own proprietary Unix systems. “They're riding both horses to see which one wins out in the market,” said Tony Massimini, an analyst at Semico Research Corp., Phoenix.
Until now, Unix-based vendors have had their own proprietary processors and software, and customers were locked into that architecture “almost for life,” Brookwood said. The arrival of a competitive vendor may result in a better price-performance trade-off for high-end systems, driving up sales in the server/workstation segment and giving Intel an increased share, Massimini said.
“Look what Intel achieved in the midrange and lower-end server market,” he said. “They came in and within several years grabbed an 80% market share. Intel could do the same in the high-end server market as well.”
In fact, Semico is projecting just such a scenario, estimating that 64-bit Itaniums sold in the high-end server market will rise from 215,000 unit shipments this year to 1.6 million in 2003. That would give Intel a 70% share of the segment in just two more years, Massimini said.
Others doubted that Mountain View, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems Inc., the leading 64-bit server vendor, will stand by and let Itanium take over its sales base. “I expect Sun will fight back in ways we can't envision right now,” Brookwood said. “They are smart people and aren't going to back off in a fight with Intel.”
A second commodity-minded rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., also is eyeing the 64-bit arena and is gearing up its Hammer processor family for a launch next year. But AMD executives said the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's first 64-bit chip, dubbed Claw Hammer, is aimed mainly at the high-end desktop and 32-bit server and workstation markets.
Unlike Itanium, AMD's Hammer family is designed to run 32-bit software in native mode and is backward-compatible with the vast installed base of X86 programs. AMD said new 64-bit programs can be added later as an evolutionary step. Since the chip maker is targeting Claw Hammer for desktops,
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