anon (anon@anon.com) on 2/24/09 wrote:
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>>If software compatibility was not important new ISAs would be introduced and dumped
>>frequently. But it is, and it means there's less sense for Itanium to exist than some people imagine.
>
>And yet it continues to grow, despite years and years of disadvantages versus x86
>(and against continual predictions of naysayers -- how can you continue claiming
>you are right when you predicted it would die several years ago?).


But see, the thing is, Itanium is not truly growing and never has been. PA-RISC and Alpha stepped aside to make room for it, and IPF has been slowly filling the vacuum they are leaving behind. Once the migration is done (and amazingly its not quite finished just yet, given the fairly impressive for Q1-Q3 2008 sales of PA-RISC powered Superdomes) that's pretty much it for growth, its all downhill from there.

It is nothing more than the next generation of PA-RISC, just as it was originally designed by HP to be. Just like PA-RISC migrated all the HP-UX customers off a different architecture while it absorbed the Apollo customers, Itanium likewise migrated all the HP-UX customers off a different architecture while it absorbed the Alpha customers. Itanium will never end up being any more dominant than PA-RISC was, because its life cycle is identical.

I always predicted Itanium would plateau when PA-RISC was discontinued, then begin a long slow decline and it would suffer the same fate as Alpha (I'd say between 2013-2015) Its all a matter of perspective, as we both see the same facts but draw different conclusions from them that so far lead both of us to believe our scenarios are unfolding exactly as we have foreseen :)