Microsoft Drops Itanium Support

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MicrosoftFollowing the recent technology releases from AMD and Intel, Microsoft officials announced that their support of the Itanium processor in their Windows server line will end.  Given the latest four and eight socket platforms [each with multi-core processors], Microsoft has determined that x86 technology outpaces the need to continue IA-64 Windows.

Why the change? The natural evolution of the x86 64-bit (‘x64’) architecture has led to the creation of processors and servers which deliver the scalability and reliability needed for today’s ‘mission-critical’ workloads,'” [Dan] Reger wrote. “Just this week, both Intel and AMD have released new high core-count processors, and servers with eight or more x64 processors have now been announced by a full dozen server manufacturers. Such servers contain 64 to 96 processor cores, with more on the horizon.”

I can’t say that I’m necessarily surprised.  Linux support of the Itanium processor has waned in recent years.  HP is probably the heaviest supporter of Itanium with HP-UX.

For more info, read the full article here.

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