Intel opens up about forthcoming Itanium family

At the Intel Developer Forum in Amsterdam, Mike Fister, general manager of Intel's Enterprise Platforms Group, spoke of soaring speeds, pilot schemes and increasing bandwidths.

McKinley, the second member of the Itanium family, is set to hit pilot release at the end of the year, while the Itanium server processor will hit the streets on 29 May.

Fister confirmed that four other versions of Itanium are in development.

Telecoms is also the latest target for the Intel might, as the company joins forces with HP to develop carrier-grade server products for converging voice and data networks.

Fister also shed some light on the 870 chipset which will be used to focus on dynamic and static platforms, unlike the Itanium platform designed for business intelligence and data centres.

Intel's Infiniband technology, expected to form a key part of the company's strategy, will reach speeds of 10Gbs, according to Fister.