Merced/Itanium-related fallout continues

Saw this over at Arstechnica

Needless to say, the delays in the release of the IA-64 processor line from Intel has caused a multitude of problems for, well, everyone that's been patiently waiting for a projected release date to stick. A good example that comes to mind (from over a year ago, around the time Merced started missing projected release dates), is the case of SGI and their MIPS to IA-64 processor phase-over plan. Because IA-64 was still mostly on the whiteboards when it should've been on motherboards, SGI had to push forward on developing beyond the R12k (targeting releases of the R14k and R16k for years down the road).

Anyhow, another major UNIX player, HP, has shown that they can no longer twittle their thumbs due to IA-64 woes, and will continue development of their PA-RISC processor line for several more years. This Techweb article covers this little factoid, and goes beyond as it discusses HP's recent announcement to OEM the 16-way Itanium server from NEC and slap their own label on it (much like Compaq is doing with Unisys's ES7k). Come on Intel, pleeeease produce this puppy in quantiry before another name change is necessary