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This article offers a look at changes in the computer industry in 2004. Intel was set to bring its new 90 nanometer Prescott chips into the market and had updated Itanium chips in the queue. Opteron chips of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) were then becoming a major challenge for Intel, as they were both powerful and offered 64-bit extensions while still running 32-bit code very well. On the Itanium side, IBM is taking its Power processor architecture to levels that are very competitive with Intel's Itanium. Intel's plan to dominate the high end processor market with its proprietary Itanium design now faces challenges from AMD below and IBM above. Sun Microsystems is another company in the throes of change. It has just cancelled its next planned processor, the UltraSparc V, in order to go with new multicore designs named Niagara and Rock. It has also extended its systems line to embrace Opteron of AMD and Linux while continuing to enhance the Solaris operating system. In one stroke, AMD turned an obsolete design into one that will live at least another twenty years. Intel has seriously stumbled in the processor market in three areas. These technical problems will be compounded by a marketing problem as Intel is now changing from a frequency based advertising to a confusing number based system that has no clear relationship between processor number and performance, especially between different x86 implementations.

The article reveals changes and developments in the computer industry. The computer industry looked pretty predictable six months ago. Since then there have been surprises in processors and technology that have changed the whole playing field. These unexpected events involve almost all of the major players in processors and systems. The largest changes have happened to Intel, the world's biggest processor maker. Intel was set to bring its 90 nanometer Prescott chips into the market and had updated Itanium chips in the queue. AMD's Opteron chips were then becoming a major challenge for Intel, as they were both powerful and offered 64-bit extensions while still running 32-bit code very well. On the Itanium side, IBM is taking its Power processor architecture to levels that are very competitive with Intel's Itanium. Intel's plan to dominate the high end processor market with its proprietary Itanium design now faces challenges from AMD below and IBM above. Sun Microsystems is another company in the throes of change. It has just cancelled its next planned processor, the UltraSparc V, in order to go with new multicore designs named Niagara and Rock. It has also extended its systems line to embrace AMD's Opteron and Linux while continuing to enhance the Solaris operating system.

The article reveals changes and developments in the computer industry. The computer industry looked pretty predictable six months ago. Since then there have been surprises in processors and technology that have changed the whole playing field. These unexpected events involve almost all of the major players in processors and systems. The largest changes have happened to Intel, the world's biggest processor maker. Intel was set to bring its new 90 nanometer Prescott chips into the market and had updated Itanium chips in the queue. AMD's Opteron chips were then becoming a major challenge for Intel, as they were both powerful and offered 64-bit extensions while still running 32-bit code very well. On the Itanium side, IBM is taking its Power processor architecture to levels that are very competitive with Intel's Itanium. Intel's plan to dominate the high end processor market with its proprietary Itanium design now faces challenges from AMD below and IBM above. Sun Microsystems is another company in the throes of change. It has just cancelled its next planned processor, the UltraSparc V, in order to go with new multicore designs named Niagara and Rock. It has also extended its systems line to embrace AMD's Opteron and Linux while continuing to enhance the Solaris operating system.

The article reveals changes and developments in the computer industry. The computer industry looked pretty predictable six months ago. Since then there have been surprises in processors and technology that have changed the whole playing field. These unexpected events involve almost all of the major players in processors and systems. The largest changes have happened to Intel, the world's biggest processor maker. Intel was set to bring its new 90 nanometer Prescott chips into the market and had updated Itanium chips in the queue. AMD's Opteron chips were then becoming a major challenge for Intel, as they were both powerful and offered 64-bit extensions while still running 32-bit code very well. On the Itanium side, IBM is taking its Power processor architecture to levels that are very competitive with Intel's Itanium. Intel's plan to dominate the high end processor market with its proprietary Itanium design now faces challenges from AMD below and IBM above. Sun Microsystems is another company in the throes of change. It has just cancelled its next planned processor, the UltraSparc V, in order to go with new multicore designs named Niagara and Rock. It has also extended its systems line to embrace AMD's Opteron and Linux while continuing to enhance the Solaris operating system.

The article presents an update on the computer industry as of June 14, 2004. The largest changes have happened to Intel, the world's biggest processor maker. Intel was set to bring its new 90 nanometer Prescott chips into the market and had updated Itanium chips in the queue. AMD's Opteron chips were then becoming a major challenge for Intel, as they were both powerful and offered 64-bit extensions while still running 32-bit code very well. On the Itanium side, IBM Corp. is taking its Power processor architecture to levels that are very competitive with Intel's Itanium. Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. is another company in the throes of change. It has just cancelled its next planned processor, the UltraSparc V, in order to go with new multicore designs named Niagara and Rock. It has also extended its systems line to embrace AMD's Opteron and Linux while continuing to enhance the Solaris operating system. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) is standardizing on three lines of systems, namely, Proliant, Integrity and NonStop. The company will continue to support all major operating systems for the Itanium class systems, including NonStop, Windows and OpenVMS. HP has embraced multiple architectures for its customers. They are Intel's Itanium and Xeon, and AMD's Opteron.

This article highlights unexpected events in the U.S. computer industry as of May 2004. The largest changes have happened to Intel. It was set to bring its new 90 nanometer Prescott chips into the market and had updated Itanium chips in the queue. AMD's Opteron chips were then becoming a major challenge for Intel, as they were both powerful and offered 64-bit extensions while still running 32-bit code very well. The 90 nm Prescott chips hit the performance Web sites with unimpressive marks, some slower than the existing 130 nm Northwood Pentium processors. On the Itanium side, IBM is taking its Power processor architecture to levels that are very competitive with Intel's Itanium. Intel's plan to dominate the high end processor market with its proprietary Itanium design now faces challenges from AMD and IBM. Sun Microsystems is another company in the throes of change. It has cancelled its next planned processor, the UltraSparc V, in order to go with new multicore designs named Niagara and Rock. On top of these processor events, the personal computer industry is about to go through a major set of changes in 2004 and 2005. The biggest computer industry change is driven by AMD's 64-bit extensions to the original Intel x86 architecture. Given the existing huge investment in x86 software, this guarantees the x86 ISA dominance for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, IBM continues to push high-end system development, basing its systems on three classes of processors. This will gradually reduce the overhead of maintaining multiple versions of support software, operating systems, and middleware for its wide array of systems. We have reached a new level of competence and competition. Mergers, acquisitions and partnerships have created a few powerhouses from what was a widely distributed industry only five years earlier. Hardware technology will continue to advance, delivering more performance with less power and space.

Reports on the potential benefit that can be acquired by AMD for the sale of the personal computer (PC) business of IBM in December 2004. Impact of the transaction of PC maker Lenovo with IBM on AMD; Changes undergone by Lenovo; Reasons for the possibility that AMD may continue to gain traction in China despite the dominance of Intel.