SlashNOT

Matthew writes: Intel has announced that with the release of the Itanium 2 processor, they are on track to capture a smaller piece of the processor market than ever before.
“We’ve tuned the Itanium and gotten the project back on track. It’s been ten years and five billion dollars to get to this point, but we’re now running at a third of the clock rate of our own Pentium 4, and we’re consuming 130 watts to do it–that’s twice the power of a typical light bulb. Those are numbers I think any other chip maker could be proud of.
“Furthermore, we’ve decided that backwards compatibility is no longer necessary, so the Itanium won’t be compatible with any existing applciations. Our consumers have indicated that they’re tired of their old software, and would like the opportunity to re-license everything they have as part of a migration to this architecture.”
“With the Itanium, we’re moving into a glorious new future, where Intel’s market share will be decimated by competitors like AMD and our own Pentium line of processors, which we’ll be forced to continue producing forever.”