Major tech firms back Itanium push

A string of major computing companies announced a new partnership on Monday to help speed the development and adoption of software for Itanium-based servers.

The Itanium Solutions Alliance includes server makers Bull, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, NEC, Silicon Graphics and Unisys; software companies BEA Systems, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP and SAS; and, of course, chipmaker Intel. The group plans to provide resources to help programmers write and optimise software for Itanium.

There are more than 5,000 Itanium applications so far. The alliance hopes to improve that by establishing Developer Days, when Linux and Windows programmers can get help migrating and building Itanium programs; the 19-facility Itanium Solutions Center Network that will provide more programming support; and an Itanium Solutions Catalog, featuring available Itanium software.

Faced with steadily improving x86 processors such as its Xeon and AMD's Opteron, Intel has redefined Itanium as a chip chiefly for high-end servers. But Intel and its allies remain firmly committed to the chip.

But conspicuous by their absence from the alliance are the other three top server manufacturers besides HP, which initiated and helped develop Itanium. Dell, IBM and Sun Microsystems all are former Itanium allies that have parted ways with Intel over the high-end chip.

Sun was the first to go, cancelling its Itanium version of Solaris in 2000. IBM followed this year, when it chose to stop developing its own Itanium servers.

And just this month, Dell said it, too, would drop Itanium servers. The PC maker said it prefers to focus on systems using Intel's Xeon processor. Dell's move followed one by Microsoft to limit the Itanium version of its next-generation server version of Windows, code-named Longhorn Server, only to higher-end server tasks.

Stephen Shankland writes for CNET News.com