Intel's great white hope for the next millennium is called IA-64 or Merced for short. When it eventually goes into production, it will replace Intel's tired, worn out 80x86 line with a shiny new 64-bit RISC architecture. A clean slate and more than a little help from Hewlett-Packard (who created PA-RISC for use in their own Unix workstations) means that IA-64 may even turn out to have a sensible design.
Merced is clearly aimed at the high-end server market. So whose operating system will run on this CPU when it arrives? Well, the fact that Windows NT is to be ported to Merced comes as no surprise. Microsoft is going after the server market very aggressively and in the past has implemented NT on 80x86, MIPS and DEC Alpha. Given HP's collaboration in the Merced project, the appearance of HP-UX Unix for IA-64 is also assumed.
But December saw a rash of other vendors clambering onto the Merced bandwagon. As part of its court settlement with Intel (Archive 11.3 p90), DEC has agreed to port Digital Unix to the new chip in readiness for the day when Alpha's licences run out.
Sun Microsystems, too, is keen to get in on the act. Already available for 80x86 machines, the company's Unix variant, Solaris, will also be ported to Merced. But Sun already has its own 64-bit CPU: Sparc. Sales of the IA-64 could easily dwarf those of Sparc, putting yet another processor architecture in jeopardy. Sun is adamant that it will continue to support Sparc, but for how long will it be able to hold out against the mighty Intel?
Even Apple is considering the new chip as a platform for Rhapsody, its new Macintosh operating system based on NeXTStep. The company denies that it will abandon the PowerPC used in its current PowerMac desktop computers.
Intel's long-term strategy is clear for all to see: kill off the opposition one by one. First PA-RISC bit the dust. Now, most recently, the demise of the DEC Alpha is assured. The next targets in Intel's sights are Sparc and PowerPC. That leaves only StrongARM (which Intel now has in its portfolio) and MIPS (which it doesn't). As has already been pointed out by others, the StrongARM is designed for low power, mobile devices and not for high-end servers. The two architectures could complement each other very nicely, which is of some comfort to us Acorn folk.
Fast-forwarding to Feb. 2008, Intel has potentially wiped out all competition and has a world monopoly on CPUs. Quite a worrying thought. One developer I spoke to told me that the Americans are simply too nervous to invoke their century-old anti-trust laws against big corporations in case the legislation is found wanting and the floodgates are opened.
In the meantime, Bill Gates is rubbing his hands in glee. With the 57 varieties of Unix squabbling over IA-64 market share, Windows NT could still dominate with only a one-third slice of the cake. Wintel wins again!
Even more horrific... - Not such a bleak outlook
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