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Hewlett-Packard hasn't just jumped on the bandwagon for the second generation of Intel's 64-bit Itanium processor, Itanium 2, it is front and center in parading a host of new products.

HP has launched a range of servers, workstations, and software built around the Itanium 2, introduced Monday and formerly code-named McKinley.

Products Unveiled

HP's products include:

A dual-processor server called the HP Server RX2600. It will begin shipping in mid-July with prices starting at $6730. The unit comes with either 900-MHz or 1-GHz processors and up to 12GB of memory, and can be used in a cluster.

A pair of workstations, the HP Workstation ZX2000 and the HP Workstation ZX6000. Pricing starts at $4600. The ZX2000 is a 900-MHz workstation with a single 64-bit processor; HP says it will carry prices similar to high-performance 32-bit workstations. The HP Workstation ZX6000 uses one or two 900-MHz or 1-GHz processors, each with 3MB of on-chip L3 cache, and comes with and up to 12GB of RAM.

The HP Server RX5670. Shipping in August at around $21,000, the RX5670 uses up to four 900-MHz or 1-GHz processors and comes with 48GB of memory.

HP is inviting users to trade in PA-RISC systems to help offset the cost of moving to Itanium 2, said John Miller, director of product marketing, HP servers.

There are other incentives to switch to the new platform: "Customers don't have to do costly box swaps, as we support in-box upgrades to Itanium 2," Miller said.

HP has also launched a wide range of software supporting Itanium 2, including Version 1.6 of its HP-UX 11i operating system; Windows Server Management; Linux Server Management; and OpenView.

HP's commitment to the architecture is "beyond the hardware and really about the software and services and about helping customers make the long-term transition to Itanium," Miller said. "For example, there is binary compatibility, where the applications and tools run unchanged when moving from IA-32 or PA-RISC to the Itanium 2 architecture," he said.

Replacing RISC

With HP planning to phase out its line of PA-RISC processors by 2004 and with the company's new focus on services and software, HP is putting a lot of time and effort behind Itanium 2--particularly in the area of support for the Itanium line of processors.

"We have overinvested in this area, in support of the software and service of systems using Itanium 2. But we see it as one of our primarily business models going forward. We've spent a lot of money and we are ready to go," said Barry Crume, HP product marketing manager.

HP isn't placing all of its bets purely on Itanium 2. The company is also betting on future generations of the processors, Crume said. It's worth moving to Itanium because the performance of future generations of the new architecture will increase faster than future versions of 32-bit processors, he said.

HP is attempting to woo business from Sun Microsystems and IBM, which also have announced plans for products using 64-bit chips.

Computationally intensive tasks like modeling and computer-aided engineering (CAE) are likely to be the biggest markets for Itanium 2 at first, where performance is more important than price, Crume said. "CAEs are historically early adoptors because they have a taste for performance," he said.

According to Crume, HP's systems have been in prototype for over a year and he has already shipped 1000 workstations to his customers.

Customer: No Rush

One power user who thinks price is still important is Inpharmatica, a London company that uses custom software and large-scale computing facilities with a mix of Sun and Intel processors in the discovery of new drugs. Chief Information Officer Pat Leach, though familiar with Itanium, believes his company is unlikely to make the change from Sun's Sparc processors.

"I certainly don't see us moving to 64-bit architectures for at least a couple of years. Sun seems clearly to be positioned to respond to any threat from Itanium. And looking out to 64-bit, our decision will also depend on what IBM does in this sphere," Leach said. He said he is skeptical about HP's argument that performance often trumps price when it comes to the customer decision-making process. "The pricing plan for these machines doesn't look attractive, except for people at the absolute edge of performance needs," he added.

Analysts also say users won't switch until they absolutely have to, but believe demand will grow for 64-bit processors as applications become more greedy for power.

"It is currently a bit like a chicken-and-egg situation, but right now there is a lack of natural demand [for 64-bit]," said Andrew Butler, a vice president at the U.K. division of Gartner.

According to Butler, HP hopes that by positioning itself early with Itanium 2 the company will gradually convince its current customers to move from PA-RISC to Itanium--and even further out, it hopes to win over Sun and IBM customers.

"There are isolated situations where users can benefit from Itanium 2, but the vast majority of HP customers will continue with PA-RISC," Butler said. He expects that HP will balance its need to keep customers happy with stable technology while continuing to promote Itanium 2 and encouraging software vendors to create applications for Itanium 2 and its succeeding versions.

"HP is going to do everything in its power to make sure Itanium succeeds," Butler said.

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