I'm inclined to agree and I've written as much. In a world where 64-bit x86 wasn't really an option, Intel and "the industry" would probably have eventually fig

I'm inclined to agree and I've written as much. In a world where 64-bit x86 wasn't really an option, Intel and "the industry" would probably have eventually figured a way to make Itanium work well-enough and cost-effectively-enough and incremented over time. Some of the then-current RISC chips would probably have remained more broadly viable in that timeline but, in the absence of a viable alternative, 64-bit was going to happen and therefore probably Itanium. Maybe ARM gets a real kick in the pants but high-performance server processors were probably too far in the future to play a meaningful role.