HP to release Itanium Blade servers next week

Intel has been hard at work on the newly revised Itanium. It has gotten quite a bit of press, with the improved architecture and the capabilities for dual-core being the most prominent features. HP is set to release their first servers based on the new design next week, in their blade servers. IBM is number one in Blade sales currently, but HP will be the first vendor to offer these Itanium blades. The HP Blades will also be running HP-UX, HP's custom version of Unix, and will be capable of running Windows and Linux on top of that. HP is number two in the Blade market, so having them as an Itanium backer likely makes Intel very happy. HP is in a good position to offer a non-x86 blade solution and already have a large marketshare, so it is interesting to see them stirring the pot.