While the Itanium as such was a big failure, it may have been a strategic triumph overall, as several RISC vendors scaled back or stopped their own efforts in a

While the Itanium as such was a big failure, it may have been a strategic triumph overall, as several RISC vendors scaled back or stopped their own efforts in anticipation of switching to Itanium. Once Intel decided to switch to x86-64, it does not look like they paid a big price to catch up (thanks to cross licensing, they could easily get the IP, and they still had their manufacturing strengths), so it's not clear to me that Intel faced ANY disadvantages in the long run (as opposed to their partners).