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Merced now called Itanium

Brand name unveiled

So the brand name for Merced is Intel Itanium, as revealed --sort of -- by The Register back in May. Still billed for launch in the middle of next year, the first IA64 chip is already sampling to a select few OEMs. And with the chip behemoth smarting from the Camino debacle, let's hope this one appears on time. Itanium processor-based servers and workstations will be available in the second half of the year 2000, the company says. So why announce the brand name today (October 4). The cynical may think Intel was doing a Grace Archer on AMD. (Sometime in the 1950s, The BBC torched beloved radio soap character Grace Archer in a barn fire, ensuring the launch of new television station ITV was relegated to the inside pages of the next day newspapers). People of a less dyspeptic disposition would say the Itanium announcement has nothing to do with stealing AMD's thunder, on the day of the Athlon 700 announcement, and everything to do with the build up with this week's Microprocessor Forum. ® Register Factoid no.64: Merced never was late, despite press reports. When the original design was put together, the techy folks said it would be ready in mid 2000. The monstro Chipzilla marketing department thought this was too late and pulled in the official launch date by three months. However, as the design came together it became clear that the marketing launch date was about as likely to happen as a successful Camino chipset, so the original launch date was hurriedly re-adopted. Related story Intel's Itanium and Intel Pla Y make trademark debuts

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