Intel pulling off an AMD?

This article at the enquirer briefly touches upon the thought in the Intel camp to launch a processor like the AMD 64 bit line of processors through an interview with a PR man at Intel. What does this spell for the future of the Itanium Chip into which Intel sunk in millions billions of research dollars? What is even more interesting is the entire slew of links at the end of this short newspiece/article providing pointers to other stories that confirm/strengthen the rumours making the rounds. Manoj scratches chin and wonders... And then he reads this in an article at the Register:

"This fateful step will necessarily consign Itanium to low volume, high end computing solutions as a mainstream, high volume x86 horse-race develops between Intel and long-time rival AMD that will push 64-bit x86 performance well into the low-mid range server territory for which low power Itanium was slated."

Though the Register is known to jump the gun sometimes when it comes to forecasting market trends, it's quoting an analyst who ofcourse, are never wrong ;)