Not if it’s Jerry Huck, HP’s lead Itanium engineer, sitting alone in a dark data center, smoking an endless stream of cigarettes and wondering what
went wrong. Because if rumors that HP has decided to ship servers based on AMD’s Opteron processor are true, the Itanic experiment may well be coming
to an end just as bacteria began to make its way around the petri dish.
CNET reports that HP plans to announce a line of Opteron-based ProLiant systems next month, although official delivery of the product may take “a
while.” Similar rumors have circulated for months, but there appears to be some weight behind this one with industry sources confirming HP has an
announcement of sorts on tap. The Opteron boxes would, of course, join HP’s Itanium Integrity servers as 64-bit options.
If true, HP would follow IBM and Sun Microsystems as an Opteron backer. But HP’s acceptance of the 64-bit processor would blunt the server industry
landscape in a fashion unparalleled by rivals.
Link: theregister.co.uk
