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Itanium to get x86 emulation?

Re: Itanium to get x86 emulation?

I suspect that this is a direct result of the Connectix takeover.

In a move to protect its investment in the 64-bit Itanium processor family, Intel is working with operating-system makers to deliver a software emulator for 32-bit apps. Intel, Microsoft, and several Linux developers plan to make IA-32 Execution Layer available in the operating-system software during the second half of this year.
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Intel should continue support of x86, although I don't see AMD as the reason why. I disagree Intel is hurting because of AMD's lead into 64bit but I'll accept the argument that they might in the future if they don't do anything about it. Intel has more market share; Dell, Gateway, and HP are focusing on the Celeron and Pentium 4 and home built AMD boxes represent a small percentage, so AMD won't be hurting Intel's bottom line quite yet. Supporting x86 should provide a smoother transition by allowing PC users to use their current set of applications in addition to the ones optimized for 64bit. 32bit and 64bit operation seems like the way to go to me for now, isn't it obvious? I think Intel was/is thinking a bit too far in the future by stopping support for x86 so soon.
 
They are doing this so companies can continue to run NT 4.0 or 2000 if they need to on a new Itanium server (for backwards compatibility).
 
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