Intel announced that it plans to produce an Itanium 2 processor at a cost of less than a third of the Itanium chips driving HP’s newest Integrity line of servers. The processor, which operates at 1.4 GHz and has 1.5 megabytes of cache memory, appears to be Intel’s most dedicated effort to break the logjam of caution that has kept Itanium a minor player in the world’s chip installations. An even less expensive Itanium 2 chip was also announced, running at 1 GHz and with a list price of $744. The cheapest Itanium 2 chip will only draw 62 watts of power, about half that of earlier generations. HP announced on the same day that it will introduce entry-level servers next year which use the lowest-cost, low-power chip. Later this year the company will introduce Integrity servers running the more costly Itanium 2 processors — servers which HP is proposing as replacements for HP 3000s — with mid-range performance specifications. The first HP systems to use the low-voltage, low-cost Itanium 2’s will be the zx2000 workstations. Those workstations’ technical target market have provided much of the success for Itanium to date.

The 3000 business group is sponsoring and managing an “Invent-IPF” server, in a program modeled after the Invent3k public development server. Invent-IPF will be an Itanium rx2600 server running HP-UX 11i v2, and customers and developers can test software on the server, explore the Unix interface under Itanium, and load demonstrations on the box. Access to Invent-IPF, as well as the Series 989 Invent3k box and the Invent9k A500 HP 9000, is available by registering at jazz.external.hp.com/pads. HP’s Jeff Vance also reported that “customers that want Itanium-2 access sooner [can] try the HP Testdrive site at www.testdrive.com. This program is a bit more restrictive than we plan for our InventIPF system, but it is available now, and it does have third-party software installed such as Oracle. “

HP is also waiving a $1,200 registration fee for any of its DSPP development partners — “at least through November,” according to Vance — who want to take the Partner Itanium Training class Oct. 15 in Paramus, N.J. The course promises to aid a company’s technical and marketing staff in exploring details of Itanium Architecture, hardware road maps and set up, transition planning and tools, and performance tuning. DSPP partners can register by calling Sharon Williams at 631.753.3352.