[ IBM apparently has just switched its Itanium OS
priorities. The Register article posted 12/9 said: “The timeframe
for this is expected to be: AIX 5L, available on the Itanium launch
date, Linux in Q2, and Windows in Q3, according to Rudd.” – LT ed.
]
“IBM is confident it will announce an Itanium-based workstation
the day after Intel is expected to release the processor sometime
in late March. Big Blue plans to use the chip in a new range of
IntelliStation workstations it has codenamed Rattler.”
“Itanium is a dramatically new computing environment,” said Rick
Rudd, IntelliStation’s product manager, who added that the mass
market would probably wait until the technology has been tried and
tested, and is more cost effective, before implementing. Rudd
believes early adopters will be large companies wanting to take
advantage of 64bit computing for intensive engineering, financial
applications and digital content creation, such as animation.”
“IBM said 64bit Linux from Red Hat, Turbo Linux, SuSE and
Caldera will be available at the same time as Itanium is released,
while AIX 5L – IBM’s next-generation Unix operating system –
will be available in April. Whistler, the 64bit version of
Windows 2000, is expected to follow a few months after
that, said Rudd.”