Microsoft News Tracker

Stephen Shankland at CNET - Itanium allies to pool development efforts:

Many companies backing Intel’s Itanium processor are planning to announce a new alliance in September to try to make it easier for customers to adopt systems using the high-end chip, CNET News.com has learned.

Hit the link for more details (Microsoft is a member of the group), but here’s the key paragraph from a Microsoft planning perspective:

In line with that high-end positioning, Microsoft’s planned update to its Windows Server 2003 operating system–called R2–won’t be available for Itanium. Microsoft’s rationale for the move is that R2 is geared toward smaller servers. The Window Server 2003 successor due in 2007, code-named Longhorn Server, will support Itanium, however.