This, we promise, is not an April's Fool joke because it's only just April Fool's day in the Aleutian Islands. However, our source for this story is not our normal Intel architect but another, so take it as you will. According to the source, Intel's 64-bit emulator is performing so badly that Microsoft is requesting, nay demanding, that any code it receives is compiled on an Alpha. And Intel is now using Alphas for its IA-64 development work. Intel was not prepared to comment on the report. ®