HP and Intel have made progress on the software front. They now have a list of 5,000 applications that run on Itanium, about half of them for HP-UX. In addition, they launched the Itanium Solutions Alliance this year to help lure more.
Unfortunately, 5,000 applications still isn't enough.
Chris Koppe, CEO of Quebec-based Speedware and a board member of the Encompass HP user group, has seen firsthand the importance of the missing Itanium software as his company helps customers migrate off the HP 3000, an earlier server line that's being phased out. About 70 percent of those customers are moving to HP-UX, and of those about half are still buying PA-RISC servers and half Itanium, Koppe said.
"We've had some Itanium prospects who had to go back to PA-RISC because their (software) tools weren't available on Itanium," Koppe said, adding that the tide is slowly turning.
Newer troubles
The October news of Montecito's delay isn't the Itanium's only recent trouble. Intel has also lowered the chip's planned top speed and disabled a 200MHz performance-boosting feature called Foxton. Release dates for future sequels also slipped a year -- a Montecito revamp code-named Montvale into 2007, and Tukwila into 2008.
On top of that, some Itanium allies have departed or backed away.
IBM and Dell dropped Itanium servers this year, leaving HP the only one of the top server makers to sell them.
Among the smaller remaining companies that sell Itanium systems -- NEC, Unisys, Fujitsu, Silicon Graphics Inc., Groupe Bull and Hitachi -- there has been consolidation, as NEC and Unisys announced an October partnership to jointly design Itanium systems.
In January, Microsoft cancelled Windows for Itanium workstations and in September said the next Itanium version of Windows for servers would be limited to use with high-end software such as the SQL Server database.
SGI, already struggling financially, has been hit again. "We were aligning our road map and product delivery to have a time-to-market release with the Montecito processor," Parry said. "Fortunately, we got enough advance insight into where things were that we've been able to react and build a product line based on Madison 9M as an interim solution."
SGI still believes it made the right decision, though. "Intel is going onward and upward with additional dual-core and multicore designs. We see them as great engines to our systems," Parry said.
The Montecito delay in October also affected HP, which had planned to release a new high-end Itanium server that uses Montecito and a chipset code-named Arches.
The October change particularly affected Unisys, whose ES7000 line can accommodate both Xeon and Itanium chips. The company now is delaying a feature that Intel had planned to launch in 2007, a "common platform architecture" that would allow Xeon and Itanium chips to plug into the same sockets. That would have simplified Unisys server designs.
Competitors have become increasingly eager to pounce on Itanium.
Software companies "make their money on licencee counts, so for them it's very important for them to achieve volume," said Karl Freund, vice president of marketing for IBM's rival Power-based Unix servers. "It doesn't have that critical mass."
And Sun President Jonathan Schwartz said on his blog in November that Itanium is headed for "a lingering death."
But through it all, Itanium allies maintain their optimism.
"We certainly had our challenges," HP's Huck said. "All in all, we're coming out ahead."
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