Intel Launches Itanium 2
WinInfo | at | by Mike
Intel's latest foray into 64-bit computing--the Itanium 2--is now widely available in workstation and server systems today, the company says. The Itanium 2 follows its lackluster predecessor by a year, offering faster processing speeds and other internal improvements, which Intel says sets the chip apart from its Sun and AMD competition. Sun has dominated the 64-bit space for some time, while AMD's recently announced 64-bit Opteron line has some interesting backers, including David Cutler, the architect of Windows NT. Intel, however, says that Itanium 2 is the right product for the market.
"Unlike AMD's offering, the Itanium is uniquely architect for this space," Intel Director of Enterprise Product Marketing Lisa Hambrick told me recently. "It's not a one size fits all strategy. We're targeting high reliability and scalability [with Itanium 2]." Hambrick noted the problems with Sun's strategy as well. "Sun wants to reach down from [the high end of the market], but now it has to compete in a market that doesn't value [the] features [it built into its SPARC chips]," she said. "We focused the Itanium 2's features on what customers want."