Instead of barreling onto the scene as originally predicted, Itanium seems to be knocking timidly at the door of the computer industry, asking for permission to join the party already in progress.

Industry analyst firm IDC originally predicted, back in 1997, that in 2002 Itanium-based server sales would generate about $33B in revenue. The actual number for that year was short by a few digits - in fact, they were shy by over 99%.

IDC made six revisions to their predictions by the time 2002 arrived, each progressively smaller, each pushing off the date to achieve any significant revenue.

Intel's Paul Otellini proclaimed 2003 the "Year of the Itanium." I'm not sure what his point was...perhaps "the year that we sell a few Itaniums?" But I am confident that you know what I mean when I nominate Itanium for the award "Most Over-Hyped Product of the Decade."

Links:
* "Year of the Itanium" http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12790
* Intel claims they will not do x86-64 http://tinyurl.com/42hj2
* "Itanium sales fall $13.4bn shy of $14bn forecast" http://tinyurl.com/4blfh
* "Intel and IDC at odds over Itanium's future" http://tinyurl.com/3u2y8