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HP-Compaq Merger

Guy Kewney AnchorDesk

Published: 06 Sep 2001 10:46 BST

The real question about a merged Compaq and Hewlett-Packard is not "What will this do to Dell or IBM?" but "What will Intel think?"

Hewlett-Packard and Intel worked together on a 64-bit processor design for the next generation, and the only visible result so far is the Itanium. And it's no secret in the trade that HP designers are deeply unimpressed with what Intel did with their technology.

But Hewlett-Packard is not Intel's only customer. It had the benefit of years of experience in big minicomputer servers and operating systems, but the Intel design team didn't think that this counted for much. And all my sources agree on one thing: the Intel team decided to take one or two ideas only from HP's 64-bit design, and then, pretty much did their own thing.

The results have not vindicated their choices. The first versions of the 64-bit architecture were deeply disappointing. Sources inside HP's engineering division kept silent officially, but nonetheless anybody who knew them would be treated to a scornful dissertation on "youngsters on their first project at Intel, who think they know everything..."

And when it became apparent that Itanium was not going to be able to run any current version of Windows at any sensible speed, there was a change of heart inside Intel.

Since then, the new versions of the 64-bit architecture have included more and more HP work.