Microsoft to release 64-bit Windows

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By Matt Berger

(IDG) -- Anticipation over 64-bit computing, propelled by Intel's upcoming release of the Itanium microprocessor, turned up a notch Wednesday when Microsoft released details about its high-end version of the Windows operating system designed to run on the powerful chip.

The Windows Advanced Server Limited Edition is scheduled for release with general availability of Itanium-based servers from manufacturers, which could be released by August.

Dell Computer announced Tuesday details of the release of its first Itanium server called the PowerEdge 7150. The high-powered server is expected to be the first Itanium server to market and should be available in August. It is expected to initially ship with either Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system or Red Hat's distribution of Linux, according to Dell.

In the next few weeks, analysts expect a number of similar announcements from Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard and other manufacturers developing products for Intel's Itanium. But Intel's first foray into the 64-bit realm won't cause too much of a stir, said Chris Le Tocq, principal analyst with Guernsey Research.

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"Based on the hardware that is coming out this year, we don't expect that to be significant volume," he said.

The workstation version of Microsoft's OS, the Windows XP 64-bit Edition, will be released on Oct. 25, the company said. Testers and select customers will get an early look at the operating system before its final release. The company will also offer an Early Deployment Program that allows hardware manufactures to ship a pre-release version of Windows XP with their systems and provide customer support direct from Microsoft. The regular 64-bit version will ship simultaneously with Windows XP for the 32-bit platform, the company said.

While Microsoft has been slow to compete against the large 64-bit Unix systems such as Sun's Solaris and HP's HP-UX, analysts say the company still has time to enter the market, mainly because there is not yet any hardware on which to run its 64-bit offering.

When the Windows platform is deployed for 64-bit computing, Microsoft is expected to begin rolling out some of its more than 300 applications for 64-bit computing currently under development. No release dates are scheduled yet, the company said, but the initial application launch will likely be with SQL Server. That release will be closely watched, as the database software is one of Microsoft's most memory-hungry applications, and should run better on a 64-bit platform.

A beta version of SQL Server for the 64-bit platform is due out in the beginning of the third quarter, with a final release after the launch of Windows 2002 server software, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

Intel could release Itanium as soon as next week, the company has said. The long-awaited 64-bit chip is the first of its kind from Intel and will be followed up sometime in 2002 with a more optimized chip named McKinley.