14 DAY TRIAL // Even though a certain Intel server platform is slowly drifting into obscurity, there are still some that push forward with systems based on it, even though they aren't many, although one might say that size cam make up for the low number.
As end-users will probably know, Intel has processing units for pretty much every sort of installation out there.
This, naturally, includes the server market, although, true enough, it has more competitors in this area than it does on the consumer market, where AMD is pretty much its only rival.
One of the older platforms it has to show goes by the name of Itanium and is one of those that doesn't have long to live, with even the roadmap for it being limited to 2012-2013.
That said, just a while ago Oracle announced that it had decided to stop developing software for the Itanium platform.
The main reason is that, after buying Sun Microsystems in 2010, Oracle gained the SPARC platform, so it doesn't really need to keep supporting rival solutions.
Now, it would appear that HP has the opposite Idea, having based a new Blade system on the very chips that Oracle abandoned.
The system in question is known as Integrity NonStop BladeSystem NB54000c and uses the 'Tukwila' Itanium 9300, released in February 2010.
All in all, the newcomer should be twice as powerful as the current dual-core NonStop system and will make it easy for customers to upgrade.
With this move, it is quite likely that HP is looking to snatch some of Oracle's customers, although the total of parties still interested in Itanium will probably be rather small even so.
Looking at it, it really seem that HP is the only server maker still interested in Intel's aged series of processors, not that even RedHat and Microsoft have dropped support.
UPDATE: HP contacted us and more accurately expressed their reaction at Oracle's decision to drop Itanium support.
“Oracle continues to show a pattern of anti-customer behavior as they move to shore up their failing Sun server business,” said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP.
“HP believes in fair and honest competition. Competition is good for customers, innovation and the marketplace. We are shocked that Oracle would put enterprises and governments at risk while costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity in a shameless gambit to limit fair competition.”