SPEC, HP profile non-existent Itanium 2

THE INQUIRER pointed out over a month ago that although HP "launched" its Itanium 2 zx2000 in September, it wasn't possible to buy one of the babies.

Nothing much has changed in the last four weeks. When you attempt to buy either of the two machines HP has on offer on its Business Store web site, both are listed as "backordered".

This, explains a helpful HP popup, means "there is no stock currently available" - just as clear a statement as you can get of the Itanic 2's non availability in its zx2000 recension.

What's a little more worrying, however, is that respected benchmarking organisation, SPEC, posted HP benchmarks for the zx6000 way back in August, listing availability for the high end Itanium 2 as September 2002, as you can see by clicking here.

And as HP hasn't even got the zx6000 machine(s) listed on its Business Store web site, surely that's a bit of a worry for both HP - where the hell's the machine that was launched - and for SPEC, ditto.

As HP is now 100 per cent committed to the Itanium platform, and is widely believed to have pushed Intel into an early launch of the Itanic 2 in summer, it looks as though it has a bit of a problem.

We think we should be told. So tell us, guys. µ