Microsoft Corp. has pulled the plug on a version of Windows XP for Intel Corp.’s Itanium 2 processor. The move marks the end for Itanium 2 in Windows-based workstations and comes after major hardware vendors abandoned the 64-bit chip for use in workstations.
From the article: “Intel supports Microsoft discontinuing Windows XP for Itanium, officially called Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003.”
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003?!?
I’m still waiting for .NET 2006 Extreme Edition Mobile 2003 Professional.
I vaguely remember hearing about this within the last month or so. is this really new news? or were they just tinkering with the idea, and this just seals the deal?
The important point of all this is the fact that the death of Itanium is practically imminent. Itanium is already a very niche processor and this particular piece of news is hanging a very dark cloud over Itanium future in my opinion. I don’t think there is anything on the horizon that promisses any hope for Itanium.
now the question is, will HP going to continue selling itanium when it seems to be a deadend? will they insist on people moving off PArisc-Alpha into Itanium or will they revive those lines of proccesors to avoid ibm/sun taking those customers?
oh wait. this is just for workstations. Windows Enterprise server and Datacenter for Itanium are not being discontinued.
I didnt know that this high end software only supports 8 itanium proccesors.
HP has already given up on Itanium
>now the question is, will HP going to continue selling itanium when it seems to be a deadend? will they insist on people moving off PArisc-Alpha into Itanium or will they revive those lines of proccesors to avoid ibm/sun taking those customers?
I don’t think there is any possibility of going back to PA-RISC or Alpha as HP overcommitted themselves to Itanium. I don’t think Alpha can be resurrected now even if there was a genuine intention — Alpha development team has been dissolved and the associated technology was passed on to Intel. There might be some hope for PA-RISC, but convincing the customers to go back to PA-RISC will be a very hard job if at all possible — it will definitely be an uphill battle for HP to retain its credibility.
Is HP looking for a hi performance workstation/server CPU different from the x86’s to avoid competition with cheap PCs ?
The only solutions are PowerPC and Sparcs !
I can well imagine a merge between HP and Sun workstations which would help Sparcs compete with PPCs and x86’s…
I hate to say it, but once again MS is late to the party. Are they the last ones to figure out the (T)itanium is a sinking ship?
Hello,
now there is no Windows for Itanium workstations, but for Itanium servers only. So how do the developers develop their software for Windows on Itanium, if not on a workstation? Every processor/OS combination needs a kind of workstation where a developer can write and test software before deploying it on a server in a productive environment. So there are only two ways for Windows on Itanium developers, they have to work remote on a server, or every developer gets its own server, which should pretty expensive solutions. At the moment I can think only of two processor/OS combinations, which do not have workstations: IBMs zSeries and OpenVMS (for the second one I’m not sure). So maybe some developers for these systems can tell, how they develop their programs.
Thanks and regards
Anton
You use a server as a workstation? I tried using Server 2003 and have to say was impressed and had none of the crashing that other people reported – more of a stability and speed increase if all told.
However, wouldn’t want your average Itanium box sat under my desk – not without ear defenders.
Typical of M$… NT is the only operating system that decrease CPU support.
Itanic will die but people still can run linux or *BSDs on your Itanic machines.
It certainly seems that Itanium is dying except for in specialist large clusters / supercoumputers which get specialist OSs anyhow.
The gives more winning ground for AMD64 (x86-64) and the PowerPC chips which is being pushed by IBM.
MS supports x86-64 but do they support the PPC architecture?
There are rumours about the ‘Cell’ processor being directly supported by three companies (IBM, Sony, and another) due for release summer 2005! I await to find out.
I wonder if MS is going to support this allegedly revolutionary cell processor? What OS will it have? As IBM supports Linux so much will they port this kernel to it?
Everyone seems to be so happy with Itanium dying, as if it’s some personal matter. Why?
Everyone seems to be so happy with Itanium dying, as if it’s some personal matter. Why?
Why? It’s a matter of perception.
Why would people get angry about the introduction of a new media format, CDs or DVDs or whatever? Answer: people don’t like buying their media all over again.
Put another way, people have placed an investment into the media, time and money, and they don’t want to lose that investment, unless the benefits of change make up for the loss in the investment. People like to feel like they’re in control, that decisions aren’t being forced down their throats, and that they’re getting good value for their money.
Why did people stick with the 80286 and 80386? Because they had an investment in the 8086 and 8088, and didn’t want to lose that investment (similar to an investment in records). Why migrate to a different platform (68000, Sparc, POWER…) when they could keep their current investment?
The same works with potential Windows -> Mac or Linux migrations. Why change and lose your investment in time, expertise, and data formats? This is why having Microsoft Office on the Mac is important, it lets people know that they’re not losing their investment in their data.
How’s this apply to Itanium? The general perception is that Intel decided that the x86 line wasn’t good enough for high-end computing, teamed up with HP, and developed the Itanium. Migrating to the Itanium would require dropping an investment in x86 expertise, data, and code. It would be a loss of control for the customer. Being hideously expensive and phenominally slow when emulating x86 code didn’t help, which is why many are clamoring for Itanium’s downfall.
We are taking the Itanium (too?) personally, and we’re interpreting it as a slight, an insult, that we’re not important enough to keep our current investments working and improving, and that it’s more important to migrate to a new, unproven, architecture with increased costs that benefits no one except Intel.
Whether that sentiment is true is another matter. It’s the perception that’s important.
That AMD came along, developed AMD64, and is doing very well with it only increases the perception that Intel was trying to profit off its customers by forcing a migration. Why drop your x86 investment for Itanium when you can keep it, increase it, and get better performance by using AMD64?
> Everyone seems to be so happy with Itanium dying, as if it’s some personal matter. Why?
Probably because it is so very ironic that the Intel and HP were rubbing this “killer” of a processor into every competitor’s face throughout almost a decade and now it is dying a rather miserable death. Plus the promise of Itanium was supposed to be fulfilled with forced extinction of other processor architectures (Alpha, PA-RISC, MIPS, Power, Sparc) and is one of the reasons why HP scrubbed Alpha and PA-RISC. In other words death of Itanium signifies the continued existance of other platforms and variety is always good — I for one would really hate to see another piece of supposedly commodity technology stomping on smaller but possibly more capable technology only because it has the backing of a 600 pound gorilla. I guess it comes back to the David vs. Goliath story and doesn’t it feel good when David wins?
HP had not killed the Itanium, in fact, they only stoped the developpement of the CPU and gave all they had to Intel. HP will put their force in building servers with Itanium / XEON EMT64 / Opteron CPU.
Don’t mix Workstation with Server. Microsoft will not have Windows XP Pro for Itanium but Windows Server 2003 and up will have Itanium support.
the itanium seemed like a joke to me too ;-p
“Don’t mix Workstation with Server.”
Why not? Workstations are the development springboard onto bigger servers. They also _can_ be the same motherboard as some servers, just in a more convenient package. Who wants a mini-rack on their desk for the Itanium dev box? Who wants to pay for rack-mount luxuries (redundant PS, etc.) if they are just seeing if it’s worth it? Is Itanium really only appropriate for mainframe-style development, where everyone gets a cheap-o Pentium 4 and uses a terminal app to the server? What about scientists who need a little FP power in their office…HP tells them to buy an Opteron?!?
The dissapperance of Itanium workstations was either a) a totally bone-headed mistake by HP or, more likely, b) a sign of an overall lack of interest in the platform. If there was genuine enthousiasm behind Itanium, I would have expected more workstation adoption from people trying Itanium out. What would a small business do? Buy a low end workstation for one of their developers to play with. At least, that’s what I would do.
yeah
>Probably because it is so very ironic that the Intel and HP were rubbing this “killer” of a processor into every competitor’s face throughout almost a decade and now it is dying a rather miserable death.
I didn’t see that much from either HP/Intel that said that it was going to conquer the desktop even though certain journalists had gotten that idea from the early plans. I don’t see why you care about a company calling their product a “killer”, isn’t this essentially what everyone does?
>Plus the promise of Itanium was supposed to be fulfilled with forced extinction of other processor architectures (Alpha, PA-RISC, MIPS, Power, Sparc) and is one of the reasons why HP scrubbed Alpha and PA-RISC. In other words death of Itanium signifies the continued existance of other platforms and variety is always good
I don’t get this forced extinction argument either. Alpha killed itself just fine without the help of Itanium, and Itanium is essentially the successor of HP’s PA-RISC. MIPS lives just fine in the embedded space, and Power is doing really well. There hasn’t been any good Sparcs in a long time, but they still live on because Sun still can build systems.
The death of Itanium just means that there will be one less architecture around, so I don’t think anyone care about that kind of variety. Personally I just think it’s cool to hate the Itanium right now.