Intel faces a number of challenges with Itanium 2, such as how to compete with 32bit architectures; how to ease the transition from 32bit legacy systems; and how to tackle the market-leading Sun and its Solaris platform.

It is also imperative that Intel cuts the chip's power consumption to the level where it can be used in rack-mounted blade and pizza box servers, and that operating system vendors produce tools to partition big systems into manageable units.

On the other hand, Itanium has very strong support from IBM, HP, Dell and just about every other maker of enterprise systems. These companies are together spending a huge amount on Itanium-related R&D, which should result in lower prices and better products.

This broad support also means that for the first time it is possible to buy a mid-range or high-end platform without being locked into a particular operating system.

But while lock-in may be less of an issue, lock-out may be a sticking point. The Itanium 2 will not take off until Microsoft delivers its dot-Net Server software, and nobody can say when that will happen.

Processors have a lifespan of around 10 years. Intel aims to sell some Itanium systems before the chip reaches its second birthday. Many will hope the software vendors will ship their Itanium apps by then, too.

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