4 ms·

AMD was more like the last straw that broke the camel's back. Itanium was already in trouble. It was hot (really hot) and underperforming. It wasn't selling re

by mpol 4y ago

AMD was more like the last straw that broke the camel's back. Itanium was already in trouble. It was hot (really hot) and underperforming. It wasn't selling really well, since it was too expensive. Of the UNIX vendors, only HP was left standing behind Itanium. IBM had already long pulled out of Itanium and also out of Monterey, the UNIX that would unify all unixes. AMD64 was the light that suddenly came shining and everybody knew that was where everybody was going.

threatripper 4y ago
Itanium is something that sounds good in theory but didn't quite deliver in practice. It is my impression that this is how things usually turn out when you do top-down design of a new product. Maybe my impression is wrong and it has nothing to do with top-down design and it's just that the majority of products fail. Maybe 99 out of 100 fail and you have to launch 100 to have a statistical chance to get 1 winner. Intel didn't launch 100 different processor designs. They surely have a dozen designs that got killed early but then they focused most of their energy on one design and that one failed. Not enough good luck probably.
- adrianmsmith 4y ago
  I'm sure you're right in general - but I would say that a counterexample, or the 1 in 100 top-down design of a new product that did succeed, is the iPhone.
  - dsr_ 4y ago
    The first iPhone appeared after five generations of iPod, and (I believe) was co-developed with the iPod Touch, the sixth generation.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Furthermore, there was no compatibility expectation with phones. In fact, there really weren't third-party apps for phones to any meaningful degree. Other than nerds, who knew what processor was in their Blackberry or Treo? Apple did reinvent the smartphone. But, like the iPod, it didn't fully hit its stride for a few years.
    - fishtacos 4y ago
      Is it really co-development if it's the same device lacking a GSM radio?

by mpol 4y ago

threatripper 4y ago

Itanium is something that sounds good in theory but didn't quite deliver in practice. It is my impression that this is how things usually turn out when you do top-down design of a new product. Maybe my impression is wrong and it has nothing to do with top-down design and it's just that the majority of products fail. Maybe 99 out of 100 fail and you have to launch 100 to have a statistical chance to get 1 winner. Intel didn't launch 100 different processor designs. They surely have a dozen designs that got killed early but then they focused most of their energy on one design and that one failed. Not enough good luck probably.

adrianmsmith 4y ago
I'm sure you're right in general - but I would say that a counterexample, or the 1 in 100 top-down design of a new product that did succeed, is the iPhone.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  The first iPhone appeared after five generations of iPod, and (I believe) was co-developed with the iPod Touch, the sixth generation.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Furthermore, there was no compatibility expectation with phones. In fact, there really weren't third-party apps for phones to any meaningful degree. Other than nerds, who knew what processor was in their Blackberry or Treo? Apple did reinvent the smartphone. But, like the iPod, it didn't fully hit its stride for a few years.
  - fishtacos 4y ago
    Is it really co-development if it's the same device lacking a GSM radio?