HP abandons Itanium workstations

San Jose (USA) – There is no market for Intel’s Itanium processor-based workstations. To confess it is none other than one of the parents of Itanium, HP, who has made it known that he has stopped the sale of workstations based on this chip.

HP explained that demand in the high-performance workstation industry is now driven by x86 processors with 64-bit extension, a segment that Intel has only recently embraced with the launch of the first Xeon Nocona with Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T). . Moreover, it does not seem a coincidence that close to this debut, which took place about two months ago, HP has decided to stop the sale of the more expensive 64-bit workstations based on Itanium 2.

HP’s defunct line of Itanium-based workstations included the zx2000 single-processor model and the zx6000 dual-processor model – both of which were introduced in September 2002.

Although some analysts argue that HP’s move represents a partial defeat for Intel’s plans, Intel wanted to downplay the incident by stating that the workstation market has never been a priority target for Itanium.

“After all – said a spokesman for Intel – HP was the only major computer manufacturer to market Itanium-based workstations”.

HP has made it clear that its strategies for the Itanium-based server market have not changed.