HP’s first IA-64 development kit omits MPE/iX HP announced its first Software Developer’s Kit for IA-64 in March, but the early release of the technology only lets developers move programs from HP-UX. NT-based software will have its own development kit from Microsoft. We haven’t talked with a 3000 customer yet who needs IA-64’s promised power, but we’ve spoken with a few that could use some more applications, the other still-undelivered benefit to working with IA-64. CSY is too busy supplying its customers with what they need today, like 64-bit MPE/iX work for PA-RISC, to chase after prospects like IA-64 today. The jury is still a long way out concerning the Intel-HP IA-64 benefits, considering that HP’s systems using the new architecture won’t even ship much before the Year 2000, if then. But so long as moving an application to HP-UX remains the prerequisite to using IA-64, we predict a lot of HP 3000 shops will continue to exploit the still-growing power of PA-RISC for years to come. Customers still report that managing HP-UX is an order of magnitude more complex than MPE/iX. Meanwhile, Intel has started up loose talk about software developers “already being behind” if they’re not developing IA-64 applications today. We might say that too, if we had to make our multi-million dollar Merced fabs pay off with lots of work on software that needs Merced. Copyright 1998 The 3000 NewsWire. All rights reserved