Itanium Will Have to Fight Its Own History

That raises a salient question: How many customers really need H-P's powered-up goods? "Intel has basically been out in different industry forums saying this is really neat stuff, but we don't think customers need 64-bit [architecture] in volume yet," points out Whalen. "I think with the early screw-ups and lackadaisical attitude from Intel, I wouldn't get that excited" about Itanium.

Future Play

To be on the safe side, IBM will nonetheless offer two Itanium-based servers while continuing to hawk its own chip line. Dell (DELL) has also rolled out an Itanium-based server.

The only big hardware shop to turn up its nose at the line is, not too surprisingly, Sun, which routinely gets panned for its steadfast embrace of proprietary Sparc chips. Asked who stands to lose from Itanium, H-P's Hudson replies immediately, "Sun, big-time."

If Itanium catches on, Sun stands to suffer more than any other player, says Frank Gillett, principal analyst at Forrester Research. "They'll lose their differentiator -- that their engineering is superior for high-end servers. If they use the same chip as everybody else, that story has to go out the window."

It will take time to figure out whether Itanium can exert that kind of draw. IDC reckons it will account for only around 16% of the server market by 2007.

But H-P isn't bothered by that projection, saying it's hitched its fortunes to Itanium for the long term. "The architecture is built for the next 15 or 20 years," insists Hudson. "We're really just getting started."

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