Microsoft Drops Windows XP for Itanium

MBCook writes "According to an article on The Register, Microsoft has canceled the version of Windows XP for Intel's Itanium processor. They will continue to sell Windows Server 2003 for the Itanium in the high-end server market, but 'For the mainstream server and workstation markets, however, we believe we can best serve our customers needs with Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, respectively.' So much for Itainum workstations running Windows, but then again the article notes that no major vendors actually sell Itanium workstations anymore."

Comments

Itanic hits Iceberg. News at 11.

[RealAlaskan]

I have an NT4 disk which will install on Alpha, MIPS and IA86. After that version, Intel dropped support for Alpha and MIPS, and look what happened to them.

I don't think this is a good sign for the Itanic, but I don't think anyone will be surprised. This may not be the end of the line for it, though. MS has only dropped their workstation version, not their server version.

The really interesting question is: will Linux be able to carry Itanic, now that MS is starting to leave it behind?

Re:Amusing

[Grishnakh]

What's really sad is that Intel still insists that the Itanium really is a superior architecture, and fully plans to push it forward in the high-end computing space. They even point out that they've pushed out most of the other 64-bit competitors, leaving them #3 behind IBM's POWER and Sun's SPARC. Of course, this sounds pretty silly since the other competitors were HP's PA-RISC, which was dated and being phased out anyway, Alpha, which was being phased out intentionally in favor of Itanium because of HP's deal with Intel, and MIPS, which never did that well to begin with.

Personally, I think Intel is going to keep beating the Itanium dying horse as long as they can, while attempting to improve overall revenues by pushing into other markets such as cellphones, PDAs, and other mobile/low-power devices. I really don't see how Itanium can possibly succeed over IBM's POWER, though it may have a good chance against SPARC since Sun is floundering so badly.

Re:Important Lesson for Intel

[imsabbel]

I call bullshit on you!
At least partially.
THe first round of epic (merced) was supposed to be a server processor, like the p6, with desktop parts trickling down, later. With the original plan, all current intel cpus should have been epic-based till now.
But the whole project was delayed and delayed, the compilers took ages to get running and AMD came rather unsuspected with the athlon, which resulted in the need quickly push the existing x86 design.
So the late epic designs werent significantly faster than x86 anymore, plus more expensive/higher power requiring. -> nobody wanted them.
If the itanium never was supposed to become a normal server&workstation processor, why do you think that they included a dedicated x86 processing core into the die?