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March 5, 2002
Itanium Conundrum Dept.
By John C. Dvorak
Itanium Conundrum Dept.: Intel has to be concerned that its Itanium chip, long touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread, will turn out to be a flop, not unlike the once-idealized 432-MHz chip. The Itanium, which is the official name for the 64-bit chip codeveloped with Hewlett-Packard, may have no appeal for the largest market segments. It's beginning to look more like an expensive specialty chip for servers in a market glut. This means it's possible that the mass market will eventually rock over toward the AMD x86-64 chip, which was designed both to compete with the Itanium and to be a fully compatible upgrade to the Athlon/Pentium architecture.
This situation has resulted in the emergence of numerous rumors that Intel is cloning the AMD 64-bit Hammer architecture and readying its chip (code-named Yamhill) to roll into the marketplace?in case of an emergency. Cynics are referring to this as the Intel 64-bit Plan B strategy. This would mark the first time that Intel has had to play performance catch-up and follow the AMD lead in design, which would be the most humiliating blow for Intel, ever.
How did Intel get into this pickle? I believe it began when the company was too aggressive in dealing with its competition and felt that there was no room in the market for Alpha, MIPS, or SPARC, not to mention AMD. Thus, Intel promised the be-all, end-all chip of the future some years back. The chip was then dubbed the IA-64 architecture and code-named Merced, and nearly every manufacturer in the world lined up behind it because of the Intel hype. In all my years of following this industry, I have never seen such sheeplike behavior. Not that I was surprised. Sun Microsystems was even included for a little while. But Sun got smart fast and backed out of the herd.
The grand promises Intel made had the effect of ending HP's PA-WW chip development that was under way in the early 1990s and killing PA-RISC, while pummeling any hopes for Alpha and MIPS. By 1997, everyone had signed on, and in 1998, some people were even suggesting that Apple should drop the PowerPC in favor of the IA-64. Thus, it was easy for Intel to begin to believe its own publicity when the company saw it had the future market for servers and perhaps most of the computer world all to itself. In the process, Intel may have become lax and taken its eye off the x86 ball.
The irony here is that Intel built a patent blockade around the IA-64 architecture that experts say is impermeable. This literally forced AMD to continue on the old x86 treadmill, with faster x86 processors that add new features. Hence, AMD developed the AMD x86-64 Hammer designs, which is what the bulk of users want anyway. These designs could leave Intel with a high-priced, who-needs-it architecture that will forever remain high-end and subject to competition from below?from AMD, from older Intel designs, and possibly from an Intel clone of the AMD processor. Wouldn't that be funny!
Genuinely Interesting Web Site Dept.: The pre-Internet era of IA-64 hype was a time of weird assertions. And since the business was heating up, you had the "in a hurricane, even a pig can fly" phenomenon. Thus we saw Intel's "Pinky and The Brain" scheme to take over the world with the IA-64. Enter a cool research tool called The Wayback Machine, at www.archive.org. The tool links to a database of archived Web sites and started in 1996.
Articles that were run on the Web in 1996 are quite revealing. For example, Intel's then-CEO Andy Grove, while speaking at the 1996 Intel Internet Strategy Day, claimed that TV streamed to the PC would become a major trend, and he expected average U.S. PC viewing hours to overtake average television viewing hours by the year 2000. These kinds of crackpot assertions, which became rampant during this period, helped contribute to the Internet bubble. Check out the site for some good laughs.
What Are They Thinking? Dept.: I was looking over what appeared to be an interesting mesh methodology for doing Webcasting. The idea is to create a P2P mesh with recipients of a Webcast acting as repeater stations and becoming broadcasters at the same time, in some sort of ping-pong-ball?like scheme, developed by AllCast Corp. out of New York (www.allcast.com). The concept requires a browser plug-in, and therein lies the rub. Although the plug-in is free, I immediately got suspicious when I read the license for the plug-in. You're limited to using the thing for one computer only, which tells me that I can't copy or transfer the file to a friend for his use. Exactly what is the point of all these distribution limitations on a piece of free plug-in browser software that's supposed to create some sort of universal P2P Webcasting environment?
You get the sense that there is a hidden agenda. Spyware or adware, perhaps? Monitoring? Who knows? When you see this kind of legal weirdness, my advice is to say, "no, thanks" and walk away. I don't care how good the idea sounds. I'm sick of these ridiculous licenses. Always read the license agreement. Too many are simply onerous or suspicious or both. Just say no.
Itanium Conundrum Dept.
By John C. Dvorak
Itanium Conundrum Dept.: Intel has to be concerned that its Itanium chip, long touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread, will turn out to be a flop, not unlike the once-idealized 432-MHz chip. The Itanium, which is the official name for the 64-bit chip codeveloped with Hewlett-Packard, may have no appeal for the largest market segments. It's beginning to look more like an expensive specialty chip for servers in a market glut. This means it's possible that the mass market will eventually rock over toward the AMD x86-64 chip, which was designed both to compete with the Itanium and to be a fully compatible upgrade to the Athlon/Pentium architecture.
This situation has resulted in the emergence of numerous rumors that Intel is cloning the AMD 64-bit Hammer architecture and readying its chip (code-named Yamhill) to roll into the marketplace?in case of an emergency. Cynics are referring to this as the Intel 64-bit Plan B strategy. This would mark the first time that Intel has had to play performance catch-up and follow the AMD lead in design, which would be the most humiliating blow for Intel, ever.
How did Intel get into this pickle? I believe it began when the company was too aggressive in dealing with its competition and felt that there was no room in the market for Alpha, MIPS, or SPARC, not to mention AMD. Thus, Intel promised the be-all, end-all chip of the future some years back. The chip was then dubbed the IA-64 architecture and code-named Merced, and nearly every manufacturer in the world lined up behind it because of the Intel hype. In all my years of following this industry, I have never seen such sheeplike behavior. Not that I was surprised. Sun Microsystems was even included for a little while. But Sun got smart fast and backed out of the herd.
The grand promises Intel made had the effect of ending HP's PA-WW chip development that was under way in the early 1990s and killing PA-RISC, while pummeling any hopes for Alpha and MIPS. By 1997, everyone had signed on, and in 1998, some people were even suggesting that Apple should drop the PowerPC in favor of the IA-64. Thus, it was easy for Intel to begin to believe its own publicity when the company saw it had the future market for servers and perhaps most of the computer world all to itself. In the process, Intel may have become lax and taken its eye off the x86 ball.
The irony here is that Intel built a patent blockade around the IA-64 architecture that experts say is impermeable. This literally forced AMD to continue on the old x86 treadmill, with faster x86 processors that add new features. Hence, AMD developed the AMD x86-64 Hammer designs, which is what the bulk of users want anyway. These designs could leave Intel with a high-priced, who-needs-it architecture that will forever remain high-end and subject to competition from below?from AMD, from older Intel designs, and possibly from an Intel clone of the AMD processor. Wouldn't that be funny!
Genuinely Interesting Web Site Dept.: The pre-Internet era of IA-64 hype was a time of weird assertions. And since the business was heating up, you had the "in a hurricane, even a pig can fly" phenomenon. Thus we saw Intel's "Pinky and The Brain" scheme to take over the world with the IA-64. Enter a cool research tool called The Wayback Machine, at www.archive.org. The tool links to a database of archived Web sites and started in 1996.
Articles that were run on the Web in 1996 are quite revealing. For example, Intel's then-CEO Andy Grove, while speaking at the 1996 Intel Internet Strategy Day, claimed that TV streamed to the PC would become a major trend, and he expected average U.S. PC viewing hours to overtake average television viewing hours by the year 2000. These kinds of crackpot assertions, which became rampant during this period, helped contribute to the Internet bubble. Check out the site for some good laughs.
What Are They Thinking? Dept.: I was looking over what appeared to be an interesting mesh methodology for doing Webcasting. The idea is to create a P2P mesh with recipients of a Webcast acting as repeater stations and becoming broadcasters at the same time, in some sort of ping-pong-ball?like scheme, developed by AllCast Corp. out of New York (www.allcast.com). The concept requires a browser plug-in, and therein lies the rub. Although the plug-in is free, I immediately got suspicious when I read the license for the plug-in. You're limited to using the thing for one computer only, which tells me that I can't copy or transfer the file to a friend for his use. Exactly what is the point of all these distribution limitations on a piece of free plug-in browser software that's supposed to create some sort of universal P2P Webcasting environment?
You get the sense that there is a hidden agenda. Spyware or adware, perhaps? Monitoring? Who knows? When you see this kind of legal weirdness, my advice is to say, "no, thanks" and walk away. I don't care how good the idea sounds. I'm sick of these ridiculous licenses. Always read the license agreement. Too many are simply onerous or suspicious or both. Just say no.
) when AMD is close to launch a mixed 32/64 bit chip with 64-bit OS support (Linux and Windows)?
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