Of course the whole story is way more complex, but I have been saying for years that the Itanium might have succeeded, if AMD had not extended x86 to 64 bit. The 64 bit extensions did not only fix some of the x86 problems (it increased the register count, pushed 64 bit double floats) but it made x86 a choice for the more serious compute platforms and servers.
Back then, the whole professional world had switched to 64 bit, both from a performance and memory size perspective. That is why the dotcom time basically was based on Sparc Suns. The Itanium was way late, it still was Intels only offering in the domain. Until x86-64 came and very quickly entered the professional compute centers. The performance race in the consumer space then sealed the deal by providing faster CPUs than the classic RISC processors of the time, including Itanium.
It is a bit sad to see it go, I wonder how well the architecture would have performed in modern processes. After all, an iPhone has a much larger transistor count than those "large" and "hot" Itaniums.
Back then, the whole professional world had switched to 64 bit, both from a performance and memory size perspective. That is why the dotcom time basically was based on Sparc Suns. The Itanium was way late, it still was Intels only offering in the domain. Until x86-64 came and very quickly entered the professional compute centers. The performance race in the consumer space then sealed the deal by providing faster CPUs than the classic RISC processors of the time, including Itanium.
It is a bit sad to see it go, I wonder how well the architecture would have performed in modern processes. After all, an iPhone has a much larger transistor count than those "large" and "hot" Itaniums.