> As I understand it, the IA-64 is finally out as a 
> supercomputer platform
> only.  What's really interesting is that linux runs on it.. 
> Micro$oft does
> not yet have an OS to run on a 64 bit architecture.  Anyway, 
> that's what I
> HEARD, salt to taste, your milage may vary.

MS has a 64-bit version of Whisler running on 16 processor IA-64 Compaq
servers.  It's not released yet.  I friend of mine does some consulting work
for MS, and he's used it.  Apparently it runs fairly well.  However, since
Linux already runs on it, and MS won't have their OS out for it until
probably the end of the year, the release of this platform in June/July is
going to be a huge blow to MS.  Companies with money are going to be itching
to get their hands on them, and they'll be forced to use linux on it if they
want to be early adopters.