HP unveils new Itanium-based servers; promises industry revolution
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 9/1/2003 12:00:00 AM
After a couple of false starts, Hewlett-Packard (HP) says its new line of Itanium-powered servers is ready to tackle full-time data-center duties. Itanium is the 64-bit chip that HP co-developed with Intel.
In lab tests, the Itanium chip has cranked through more transactions per minute than other server chips currently on the market, but its real-world performance has been less impressive.
The first version of Itanium, introduced in 2001, came to market late and never lived up to performance expectations, and the second version developed an annoying habit of causing servers to crash.
Now HP says the bugs have been worked out, and it expects the new Itanium-based servers it began selling in July to help it take market share from industry rivals IBM and Sun Microsystems. A successful Itanium line of products would serve HP in two ways: boosting revenue with new server sales, and fattening its profit margins because it shares development costs on the chip with Intel.
The new HP Itanium line, dubbed the Integrity series, includes a one-processor, entry-level system priced in the $7,300 range; a two-processor model that runs roughly $21,000; and a 64-processor unit called the Integrity Superdome that sells for roughly $260,000. HP claims the Superdome can run UNIX, Windows, and Linux operating systems simultaneously.
One thing that could hurt Itanium sales, particularly in the short term, is the need for users to buy new applications that can work with the chip's 64-bit architecture. Several major application vendors—including PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems—have developed applications that are compatible with Itanium. Still, questions about the chip's performance—and users' willingness to buy new applications—have to be answered.
