Microsoft makes its way to 64-bit chips

Microsoft said some upcoming products, including its Exchange 12 e-mail server, will run only on 64-bit processors.

At a conference for its management software customers, company executives detailed its plans to add support 64-bit microprocessors in its server applications and operating systems.

By late next year, Microsoft expects to deliver Exchange 12, which will run only on x86-compatible 64-bit servers, said Bob Kelly, general manager of infrastructure server marketing at Microsoft.

Kelly said 64-bit chips will make the greatest impact on the performance of applications such as Exchange and its SQL Server database.

"IT professionals will be able to consolidate the total number of servers running 64-bit (processors) and users will be able to have bigger mailbox size," he said.

Longhorn Server R2 and a small-business edition of Longhorn Server will be available only for x86-compatible 64-bit chips as well the company's Centro mid-market bundle. Longhorn server is expected to be released in 2007 and the R2 follow-up could come two years after that.

Without providing a specific target date, Kelly said that Microsoft is working on a product called System Center Essentials, which will be a management product aimed specifically at medium-size companies.

He said Microsoft intends to build application-level monitoring into the forthcoming version 3 of Microsoft Operations Manager to complement the present hardware-level monitoring.

Microsoft also said its Microsoft Virtual Server Release 2 will be available in the first month of December, priced at $99 per server for the standard edition and $199 for the enterprise version.

[Karlos4272]

Not really a great Idea

Here are m thinking about this, although 64-Bit is the way of the future MS forcing ES to move to 64 bit computing with their mail db servers is not susch a great idea. The perfomance and storage capacity will surelly increase but manging ever large users mail files and SQL db is today of of the biggest headache for IT Administrator. What is needed is more simple clean mailboxes without all the clutter that we have today in corp email. For SQL, you will ever larger DBs I only hope that network bandwith keep up.

Revolutionary!

Gotta hand it to the folks at Microsoft... they are so innovative.

[tr400]

64 Bit computer

I'm on a 64 bit computer right now and, to tell the truth, I see zero difference between it and a 32 bit. Starting to think this is another boondoggle being perpetrated on the computer semi-literate operator. But, anything to keep the corporate pockets filled, I guess. I've got Linux on my old (?) 32 bit computer and I'll be switching to it when MS comes out with yet another $200.00 OS next year. Tired of paying out the gazoo for updates and new OS'es. My little rant for the day.

[Stomfi]

It's all in the word size

I run 64 bit SUSE 10 on AMD 64 and 32 bit SUSE 10 on 32 bit Semptron. The 64 bit is a bit quicker, but the big advantage is the 8GB of RAM in the 64 where I've configured a 4GB Ramdisk which holds OO, the GIMP, Audacity and some others.

Of course there is no real advantage apart from memory and disk addressing recompiling 32 bit applications to 64 bit, but once you get applications written for a 64 bit instruction, you should see some changes especially as a 2 stage 32 bit instruction may be able to be a 1 stage 64 bitter.

Remember that Intel had to put in some 128 bit registers to perform the MMX instructions quickly enough. And the word size meant they could have instructions that could perform more complex tasks.

[Llib Setag]

Been There, Done That...

64-Bit Computing OS?
Microsith's "virtual" server 64bOS in 2007?

Huh...Linux 64 bit OS TODAY & Mac OSX 64 bit TODAY...

WOW!, thanks Citizen Gates for being soooooo inovative.

"if you can't innovate, imitate"...Citizen Gates

[azaltsman]

No 32 bit support?

That's absurd. We have to tell customers to buy new servers to go to Exchange 12? This will inhibit adoption of Exchange 12, especially in this age of server consolidation.

[Stomfi]

Exceedingly Strange

You would think that such a large company as MS would be able to support other architectures as well as x86. It is exceedingly strange that their products only run on Intel and AMD, when other OS products like Linux and FreeBSD have shown how easy it is to port a monolithic OS to other architectures.

Is it a mindset thing? Or do they leverage stuff at the hardware/BIOS level to get competitive advantages for their applications?

[cyber_rigger]

This is incredibly great news

... for Linux