The launch of Fujitsu's Itanium 2 servers will also hasten the adoption of 64-bit computing among local users, according to a local Intel official.

'The interest has been growing exponentially,' said Carlo Subido, business solutions manager for Intel Microelectronics Philippines. According to Subido, Intel's local arm has closed 'some large deals' lately but declined to disclose names of companies.

Subido noted that one of largest Itanium installations is a local bank in the process of replacing its mainframe machines. 'We already had a contract signing and we are just waiting for the delivery of the hardware,' he said.

While the Philippines still lags behind other countries in the region in terms of adopting 64-bit computing, he noted growing interest on dual-core systems from local users and sees greater adoption this year.

'In fact, we are already seeing the start of 128-bit for some early adopters but that is still a long way to go,' said Subido, noting adoption in verticals like banks, manufacturing, telecommunications and government.