This, if intel's compilers and architecture had been stellar and provided a x5 or x10 improvement it would have caught on. However no one in IT was fool enough to switch architectures over a 30-50% performance improvement that require switching hardware, compilers, and software and try to sell it to their bosses.

> if intel's compilers and architecture had been stellar and provided a x5 or x10 improvement it would have caught on.

That sounds like DEC Alpha to me, yet Alpha didn't take over the world. "Proprietary architecture" is a bad word, not something you want to base your future on. Without the Intel/AMD competition, x86 wouldn't have dominated for all these years.

I dunno if you meant it this way, but I've heard waaaay too many people say things like this meaning "if Intel compiler guys didn't suck...". They didn't, and don't (Intel C and Fortran compilers are to this day excellent). The simple fact is noone has proven yet that anyone can write compilers good enough to give VLIW overwhelmingly compelling performance outside of niche uses (DSPs, for example). I remember the Multiflow and Cydrome guys giving the same "it's the compiler, stupid" spiel in the mid-80s, and the story hasn't changed much except the details. We bought a Multiflow Trace...it was really nice, for certain problems, but not order-of-magnatude-faster, change-the-world nice, which was how it was sold.

Now, to be clear, a lot of these folks and their ideas moved the state-of-the-art in compilers massively ahead, and are a big reason compilers are so good now. Really, really smart people worked this problem.