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Dell Computer has decided to take a wait-and-see approach to the second generation Intel 64-bit Itanium processor, Itanium 2, which will be officially launched on Monday.

"Dell has made a decision to delay the launch of a next generation IA-64 server until stronger customer demand materializes," Sinead Murphy, a spokesperson for Dell's U.K. and Ireland division, says in an e-mail response to questions on Friday.

Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, will monitor the market and "when a higher volume customer demand exists, Dell will be ready with its next generation of Itanium-based products," Murphy says.

The company based its decision on a number of factors including the lack of "mature" 64-bit operating systems and applications for the processor, Murphy says.

"Itanium-based servers today are primarily used in software development activities and consequently there are specific segments and interests in serving the market today to meet their current needs," Murphy says.

Moving Slowly

While Hewlett-Packard has already announced a number of servers, workstations, and software based around Itanium 2, Dell and IBM have both been slow in announcing their plans for the processor. Some analysts were already forecasting that Dell would not initially be making major Itanium 2 announcements next week.

"Dell stuck its toe in the water with Itanium 1 and it was not overwhelmed with the response from consumers. It comes as no surprise that Dell is saying that it'll wait and see as its business model would require products with Itanium 2 to be a viable market proposition very quickly. I don't see that happening until the third or even fourth generation of Itanium," says Andrew Butler, a vice president at the U.K. division of Gartner.

Dell sees its current PowerEdge product line based on the Intel Xeon processor as continuing to provide the performance and value required by its customers, and the company's relationship with Intel remains strong, Murphy says.

Dell also has no plans exit the IA-64 market space, with the PowerEdge 7150 remaining in Dell's portfolio of PowerEdge servers, Murphy says.

According to Murphy, Dell has the flexibility to respond quickly if customer demand for products using Itanium 2 should change in the future.

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