Intel and Hewlett Packard"s Itanium server processor lines have struggled over the years, with HP being the single company out of the top four server makers building systems around it. However, reports of the Itanium"s demise over the years have never come to fruition, and with the recent announcement of $10 billion of support from Intel, HP, and other financial backers through the end of this decade, it appears to be sticking around a while longer.
While sales pale in comparison to the x86 server market, high end, "mission critical" servers using Itanium processors as well as IBM Power and Sun Sparc processors offer higher revenue opportunities by comparison. The market that Itanium targets represents a $140 billion hardware opportunity over the next five years since currently used hardware is generally three years old or more.
While Dell and IBM formally dropped support last year, 70 out of 100 of the world"s largest companies now use Itanium systems, up from 40 last year.