“Intel is dressing up for a big dance, but it may need to make a
few frantic phone calls to find a date. While the chip giant says
its 64-bit Merced processor will ship next year, it’s unclear
whether operating-system vendors can get to the party on time.”
“The situation seems unthinkable, given that Intel and its
software partners have spent four years hailing Merced as the
hardware architecture for the next millennium. But as Merced,
a.k.a. the IA-64 processor, creeps ever closer, operating-system
vendors-including Microsoft, IBM and Sun Microsystems-are making
only plodding progress toward their goals of shipping
simultaneously with the oft-delayed chip…“
“Once Intel lifts its Merced nondisclosure agreements, Trillian
plans to put the entire IA-64 Linux source tree on the Web. Then
the group will approach Linux founder Linus Torvalds about
including its work in the next Linux build.”