Itanium allies to pool development efforts
 

Many companies backing Intel's Itanium processor are planning to announce a new alliance in September to try to make it easier for customers to adopt systems using the high-end chip, CNET News.com has learned.

The group, called the Itanium Solutions Alliance, has several plans to make Itanium more useful, said a source involved with the outfit. The alliance will sponsor porting events to help programmers bring their software to the processor, set up porting centers where such work can take place and create catalogs so customers in specific industries can find combinations of Itanium hardware and software for various tasks.

In addition to Intel and Hewlett-Packard--the co-developer of Itanium and the top seller of Itanium servers--the alliance includes server makers NEC, SGI, Unisys, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Bull, and software makers Microsoft, Red Hat, Novell, Oracle, SAP and SAS, the source said.

http://news.com.com/Itanium+allies+t...?tag=nefd.lede

They are all too expensive except Windows base PC applications such as SAGE; Demand Solutions and other smaller enterprise solutions. SAP, BPICS, Bauns, SAS cost an arm and a leg.