By the time Itanium was released in June, 2001, it was no longer superior to contemporaneous RISC and CISC processors. Itanium competed at the low-end (primarily 4-CPU and smaller systems) with servers based on x86 processors, and at the high end with IBM's POWER architecture and Sun Microsystems' SPARC architecture. Intel repositioned Itanium to focus on high-end business and HPC computing, attempting to duplicate x86's successful "horizontal" market (i.e., single architecture, multiple systems vendors). The success of this initial processor version was limited to replacing PA-RISC and Alpha in HP systems and MIPS in SGI's HPC systems, though IBM also delivered a supercomputer based on this processor.[20] POWER and SPARC remained strong, while the 32-bit x86 architecture continued to grow into the enterprise space. With economies of scale fueled by its enormous installed base, x86 has remained the preeminent "horizontal" architecture in enterprise computing.
Only a few thousand systems using the original Itanium processor were sold, due to relatively poor performance, high cost and limited software availability.[21] Recognizing that the lack of software could be a serious issue moving forward, Intel made thousands of these early systems available to independent software vendors (ISVs) to stimulate development. HP and Intel brought the next-generation Itanium 2 processor to market a year later.
Only a few thousand systems using the original Itanium processor were sold, due to relatively poor performance, high cost and limited software availability.[21] Recognizing that the lack of software could be a serious issue moving forward, Intel made thousands of these early systems available to independent software vendors (ISVs) to stimulate development. HP and Intel brought the next-generation Itanium 2 processor to market a year later.
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