HP all set to bet its server business on Itanium

Hewlett Packard (HP) co-developed the Itanium architecture with Intel and is betting its server business to the success of Itanium. In its bid to transform the existing 32-bit architecture users to the 64-bit architecture the company organized a two day developers forum in Bangalore.

Zia Askari of Cyber News Service spoke to Arun K Thiagarajan, President, HP India and Roy Vandoorn, Chief Marketing Officer at HP.

Q1) What kind of market segment are you going to address through this Itanium family of processors?

Ans: Initially we are looking towards the early technology adapters and then the developer community to leverage on this platform. The idea is to create an atmosphere where they can start converting the existing applications into solutions. We will see a whole lot of applications coming out from this 64-bit architecture. We are betting our server business on the success of Itanium based architecture.

Q2) How much time would it take for this transformation from 32-bit to 64-bit architecture?

Ans: This is something which is not going to take place overnight. So we are looking at a long a time period which is long enough for the market to mature to Itanium based processors. Ideally this should happen within three to four years time frame. By the end of 2004 we are going to stop manufacturing RISC based servers, so this would be the time when we are pinning down our hopes for Itanium to really take off. To make things easier for the enterprises we are helping in transforming their 32-bit architecture to that of Itanium based 64 -bit architecture, we have developed this Aries technology, which acts as an interpreter between the 32-bit and the 64-bit architecture. So I believe that if someone wants to go for Itanium, we can do it in no time.

Q3) What is the value proposition that HP is giving to the developer community?

Ans: HP is the only vendor that will provide a bridge to Itanium without requiring that enterprise Unix customer switch to a different operating system platform. The fact that we are going to support three major operating systems (HP- UX, Linux and Microsoft windows 2000) will help us go a long way in establishing Itanium as a major source of application development in the near future. We have also come up with PTAC (partner technology access center), which would provide technical assistance to make a smooth transition to the Itanium based architecture. We are dedicated to helping developers, ISVs and e-commerce players a smooth and hassle free transition to IA-64. PTAC will offer a one-stop advantage, unparalleled flexibility and multi-OS support as they transition to Itanium based systems.

Q4) After Itanium what will be the next technology to come out?

Ans: Itanium is not a single chip actually it is a family of processors and there are a lot of chips to come out as we move ahead in time. After two years we will be having processors like McKinley, Madison and Deerfield in the market by the end of 2003. All these processors will further strengthen the position of Itanium family of processors and will firmly entrench us as a brand in the marketplace. Deerfield will also see us penetrate into the desktop space as it has an end user architecture which supports the lower end segment. So by the time we unveil Deerfield processor we are hoping to get even into the desktop arena with 64-bit architecture.

Q5) Moore's law says that chip processing power will double every 18-months time and the size will get reduced by half, how long can you afford to do that?

Ans: This industry is driven by a simple factor and that is the factor of necessity and I believe that as long as necessity is there to increase the processing power, we will continue to do that as we have done that in the past. We are also working on a futuristic technology called 'Blade server', which will allow a user to add computing power as per the needs making it a more user friendly experience. The servers out of this technology are expected to be out next year.

(CNS)