Intel admits Xeon is killing Itanium
Intel has effectively sounded the death knell for its Itanium processors by saying that its Xeon chips are moving into the high-availability, mission-critical arena.
Talking to thinq_ at Intel's Day in the Clouds event, Dylan Larson, director of Xeon Platform Marketing at Intel, said that the firm was developing its Xeon processors with a "no compromise attitude". When asked what that meant in real terms, Larson said it was to "position Xeon [processors] for the big back end".
The 'big back end' Larson was referring to is currently occupied by the Itanium servers that Intel pitches as ultra reliable, big iron machines. Larson said that Intel has "put significant investment in the Xeon's reliability features" adding that many of its customers use Xeon shod servers for mission-critical services. Earlier in the day Larson told journalists that Intel will ship a version of its Atom processor under the Xeon brand. Single-socket 'microservers' will, according to Larson, make up 10 per cent of Intel's server sales by 2015.
