Itanium 2 gets heavyweight backing

Software under preparation...

Industry heavyweights have thrown their support behind Intel's Itanium 2 enterprise processor. Microsoft plans to release an Itanium 2-compatible version of Windows Advanced Server next month, and will issue Windows XP for workstations in the first quarter of 2003. The recently formed UnitedLinux consortium of Linux developers said a version of the operating system running on Itanium 2 machines will be released in the second half of 2002. NEC, SGI and Unisys also promised to ship Itanium 2 software later this year.