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Apr. 7, 2010

Late yesterday afternoon, Microsoft said it is abandoning Intel's Itanium platform after the current release of its Windows Server 2008 and various server tools software.

The decision came a bit as a surprise since not many in the IT sector saw that coming.

Microsoft said that its Windows Server 2008 R2 release and its forthcoming SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 would be the last versions of these server products to run on Intel's Itanium chip architecture.

After mulling over its decision in the past three weeks, the software giant took action since the growing ability of x86 64-bit chips from AMD and Intel are enough to provide the scalability and reliability that the company is targeting with its current generation of server operating systems.

"Our Windows Server 2008 R2 is ready for the ever increasing number of cores on the new and planned x86 64-bit chips from AMD and Intel and on the servers from OEMs such as NEC and HP that use them.

To date, Windows Server 2008 R2 supports up to 256 logical CPUs. However, Itanic CPUs has had little to offer Microsoft over the last year. Last December, when it was reported that Red Hat Linux was dropping Itanic, IDC was quoted as saying that just five per cent of Itanium servers (in Europe at least) ran Windows.

Overall, the vast majority, about 60.2 percent, ran Unix or Linux, while less than 30 percent ran Windows.

By continuing to focus on x86 chips and dropping an additional platform, Microsoft can shave off some of the costs associated with building, updating and marketing its Windows Server 2008 platform.

However, Microsoft will still continue to support users running Windows on existing versions of Itanium, including the recently released Itanium 9300 series, codenamed Tukwila.

For now, Microsoft has delayed the release of its version of SQL Server 2008 R2 for data-warehouse applications from hardware suppliers such as Dell, IBM, HP and NEC. Parallel Data Warehouse edition will now be released following customer feedback from a technology adoption program that was announced last week with the release of a Parallel Data Warehouse technology preview.

All of this simply means that Windows Server 2008 users running their applications on Itanic servers get 8 more years of coverage from Microsoft under both of it's usual mainstream (default program) and extended support initiative.

Two weeks ago, Intel and HP said they are planning to work together to boost performance on small and medium-size workstations and to improve overall computing workflows.

Furthermore, DreamWorks Animation also announced that it is leading a business transformation based on the scalable multicore innovations provided by HP and Intel to help the next generation of filmmakers.

By placing performance tools that are dramatically faster in the hands of artists, DreamWorks Animation hopes to inspire a new generation of filmmaking.

Jim Zafarana, v.p. and GM for the workstations division at HP says "the multiplier effects of multicore processing in HP workstations will be transformational, turning hours into seconds, days into minutes and years into quarters. The spec wars are over. Multicore parallel processing is steamrolling all previous processes and changing the way we utilize computer processing resources for the next decade."

Source: Microsoft Corp.

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