Microsoft's decision to end support for Intel's Itanium chip in its server architecture, along with terminating future development of its Essential Business Server, suggests that the company is attempting to shift its server business to take advantage of what it sees as developments in both the processor architecture and cloud computing space. At the same time, its moves in the consumer space, including the brutal elimination of several legacy products and the upcoming release of several new ones, suggest a parallel streamlining of its products.
Microsoft's recent decision to end support for Intel's Itanium chip in its server
architecture, along with the elimination of its Essential Business Server (EBS)
development, suggests that the company is trying to reposition to take
advantage of several developing business IT trends, including virtualization
and cloud computing. That paradigm shift is also mirrored on the consumer side,
where at least one analyst has seen the recent wave of products as evidence
that Microsoft is trying to retake ground lost over the past couple of years to
Google and other companies.
Microsoft plans on ending support for Intel's Itanium chip in its server
software was based on the belief that later advances in chip technology have
made its architecture dispensable. As a result, Windows Server 2008 R2 will
likely be the last version of Windows Server to support Itanium. Intel's EPIC
(Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing) architecture chips will receive
their last go-round from Microsoft in the SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio
2010 products.
"The natural evolution of the x86 64-bit (-x64') architecture has led to the
creation of processors and servers which deliver the scalability and
reliability needed for today's -mission critical' workloads," Dan Reger, a Microsoft
senior technical product manager, wrote in an April 2 post on the Windows
Server blog. "Just this week, both Intel and AMD
have released new high core-count processors, and servers with eight or more
x64 processors have now been announced by a full dozen server manufacturers.
Such servers contain 64 to 96 processor cores, with more on the horizon."
Extended support for Itanium-based systems and R2 will continue through July
2018, added Reger. "Microsoft will continue to focus on the x64 architecture
and its new business-critical role, while we continue to support Itanium
customers for the next eight years as this transition is completed."
Although Intel's plans for Itanium ostensibly extend well into the future
,
Intel executives have publicly stated that they expect many mainframe and
HP-UX-based machines to migrate to eight-core Xeon 7500 "Nehalem EX" processors
over time. The Xeon 7500 processors, which offer three times the
performance of previous Xeons, are targeted at high-end servers such as RISC
systems and mainframes that currently leverage Itanium for their architecture.
Microsoft's fine-tuning of its business offerings, the better to adjust to a
changing landscape, was also evident in its March 5 announcement that it will discontinue
future development of its Windows Essential Business Server (EBS), effective
June 30. Although it had been meant as an IT infrastructure option for midsize
businesses, EBS found itself apparently outpaced by advances in cloud computing
and virtualization; tools in those areas were already integrated into offerings
such as Windows Server 2008 R2 and BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite),
leading Microsoft to finally terminate EBS.
"This decision to not ship future versions of EBS does not come lightly and
will not impact any other Windows Server products and solutions," read an
unsigned note about the issue posted on the
Windows
Essential Business Server Team Blog on March 5. "As a matter of fact, we
are working hard to build the next version of Windows Small Business Server (SBS)
and look forward to a second decade of success with this award-winning small
business offering."
Those Microsoft employees currently working on the EBS product development
team are apparently due to be shifted over to other projects within the
Microsoft Server and Cloud division, while current EBS customers can expect a
five-year mainstream and five-year extended support cycle for their product.
In a March 5 e-mail to eWEEK, a Microsoft spokesperson termed the
elimination of EBS as a "streamlining" of the company's product portfolio.
"This decision represents a natural market shift in midsize businesses'
preferences toward creating their own IT solutions."
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