Can Intel Transmute Big Iron to Desktop Gold?
It should be obvious by now that current reality makes it virtually impossible for another MPU vendor to challenge Intel backed x86 on the desktop with a different ISA. No other chip maker comes close to its manufacturing and design capacity, wealth, and influence with independent software vendors (ISVs) and hardware OEMs. The interesting question that naturally arises is whether Intel itself could replace x86 with a different architecture if it chooses. Or has x86 taken on a life of itself beyond the control of its creator similar to how the Wintel PC standard escaped the grasp of mighty IBM? This is an increasingly important question because many industry observers are convinced Intel will eventually attempt to replace x86 with the Itanium processor family, first in servers, then on the desktop, and eventually in compute intensive mobile applications. Intel openly positions IPF against RISC based rivals in the mid to high end server market. The fact that Intel has not yet publicly di
