Worth reading: Itanium--a cautionary tale

Worth reading: Stephen Shankland examines the first decade and a half in the life of Intel's Itanium processor (the project started in 1988) and chronicles what he calls a series of missteps that undermined the processor's ascent to the top of the heap. For context, Shankland details the current numbers:

Despite years of marketing and product partnerships, Itanium remains a relative rarity among servers. In the third quarter of this year, 7,845 Itanium servers were sold, according to research by Gartner. That compares with 62,776 machines with Sun Microsystems' UltraSparc, 31,648 with IBM's Power, and 9,147 with HP's PA-RISC.

But perhaps most significant, it compares with 1.7 million servers with x86 chips, based on an architecture Itanium was intended to replace. Despite years of marketing and product partnerships, Itanium remains a relative rarity among servers. In the third quarter of this year, 7,845 Itanium servers were sold, according to research by Gartner. That compares with 62,776 machines with Sun Microsystems' UltraSparc, 31,648 with IBM's Power, and 9,147 with HP's PA-RISC.

Of course, Intel and HP stand behind their progeny, but the evidence points to a steep mountain to climb.