MS to confirm Hammer support
Sorry, Opteron
Posted in Channel, 24th April 2002 14:21 GMT
This afternoon, East Coast time, AMD will hold a conference call to update the world on "significant developments" on Hammer.
The most obvious significant development would be Microsoft support for its upcoming 64-bit CPU platform. The other obvious thing is the brand name for the 64-bit CPU (Hammer is simply a code name), the subject of much speculation on the Web. Shortly after writing, Electronic News was first with the name for server versions of Hammer. It's now to be called Opteron. Desktop versions will come under Athlon's branding cloak.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the announcements, say that AMD will confirm MS' backing. Neither party would talk in public to the WSJ, beyond a "we're evaluating the technology" from Microsoft.
On Feb 8, Jerry Sanders begged a 64-bit favour from Bill Gates, when the Microsoft chairman phoned to solicit his testimony at the MS antitrust trial. Gates said he would look into going public with support for Hammer, Sanders told the court last week. This week The Inquirer published an internal email from AMD, incorporating an earlier email from Microsoft, which refers to the software giant's tests of the "AMD64 K8 system". ®
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