At the TechEd IT Forum in spain the Microsoft Senior Vice President Bob Muglia revealed to ZDNET that the next version of Windows Server (LongHorn 2007) will be the last 32 bit server operating system released by windows
He said, “We will ship ‘Longhorn’ in the second half of next year, and we will ship a 32-bit and a 64-bit version. That will be the last time we ship a 32-bit version. From that point, the next release, which will be roughly two years later, that product will only be available as 64-bit.”
It looks like Microsoft is pretty confident that the 64 bit version of windows will take hold. I wonder if the next client version of windows will be 32 bit?
I think they are being really optimistic here. Yes, the 64 bit version of windows can run 32 bit programs in compatibility mode – but many of them do not work properly. I can’t imagine the number of mission critical apps that will take years to move to the 64 bit space…even on the server side.
It will be interesting to see if they stick to this statement over the next two years.
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