Itanium 2: the processor rivals

Itanium is not the only 64bit processor

Sun Microsystems
Sun is the dominant supplier of 64bit server systems. It uses the Sparc architecture, usually outperformed by rivals, which seems to demonstrate that performance is not a critical factor in its market. But industry watchers have predicted that, as a supplier of proprietary hardware and software, Sun must fall to the combined might of systems makers that use commodity processors and operating systems to help price their products below those of Sun. Instead, the combination of a wide range of enterprise application software and deep hooks into academic, e-business and engineering sectors have ensured Sun's prosperity. However, despite moderate success in expanding its software, storage and services portfolios, Itanium 2 is Sun's biggest challenge yet - and there is no dot-com boom to help it.

IBM
IBM's Power architecture is used in its mid-range eServers, best known by their previous AS/400 and RS/6000 names. Although demand has recently been down, there is no prospect of any of these being retired. IBM will also sell Itanium 2 servers and workstations, and will be uniquely positioned to supply both Intel and proprietary Risc architectures.

AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel's old rival in x86 processors, is in better shape than ever before, thanks to the enormous commercial success of the Athlon chip. AMD's 64bit Opteron processor will compete head to head with Itanium 2, and although AMD has no real pedigree in servers, the 64bit Opteron is fully compatible with existing 32bit applications. The prospect of a bridge between 32bit and 64bit worlds is bound to attract interest. Linux and Windows will both be available for the Opteron.

Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard helped to develop the Epic instruction set used in IA-64, and so is closely allied with Intel. It retains a legacy commitment to its PA-Risc chip and HP-UX operating system, and also has an interest in the Alpha chip and the Tru64 Unix, OpenVMS and NonStop Himalaya platforms acquired with Compaq. However, with PA, Alpha and Tru64 to be phased out, HP will quickly become another Intel-focused vendor.

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