Here’s one more nail in the Itanium coffin. Microsoft has announced that it’s dropping support for products based on the ill-fated processor, throwing its lot in with x86 architecture.
Server Watch takes a look at what’s behind Microsoft’s decision to drop the Itanium.
Microsoft has announced it will no longer support further development for Intel’s Itanium processor, putting the products it currently has on the market into maintenance status for the next three years and ending support in eight years.
Dan Reger, senior technical product manager at Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), made the announcement in a blog post on Friday. Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 will be the last versions of those products to support the Intel Itanium architecture.
Current support for Itanium will remain unchanged. Mainstream support for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems (and R2) will end on July 9, 2013 while extended support will continue until July 10, 2018.