8. Lewis E. Platt: The Discontinuation of PA-RISC System Architecture
HP determined in the late 1980’s that the PA-RISC system architecture was going to reach its limit and the company began to research a new system, called Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW). In 1994, HP’s CEO Lewis E. Platt believed that company’s own microprocessor foundry was no longer cost-effective and he decided to cease the production of PA-RISC. HP partnered with Intel instead to develop a 64-bit VLIW chip for enterprise users, which was later known as IA-64. The Itanium was released in 2001 after billions of dollars spent in seven years of development period. The chip came to be known unofficially as the “Itanic” instead for its sub-par performance compared to cheaper x86 models already available for business applications.