Microsoft continues drive to 64 bits By Bob Trott and Ed Scannell InfoWorld Electric Posted at 6:38 AM PT, Dec 7, 1998 Microsoft is chugging along in its bid to build a 64-bit version of its upcoming Windows 2000 operating system, hoping that slow and steady will win the race. The software giant has come under fire for being slow to build a 64-bit OS -- deemed essential for a vendor that wants to storm the enterprise with heavy-duty data-center solutions -- but Microsoft's timing may actually be in line with what customers are looking for. Many analysts said there is little interest among corporate users for a 64-bit version of Windows NT that runs on Intel-based servers. The obvious reason is that Intel's Merced chip will not ship until mid-2000. But perhaps as important, 64-bit computing is not crucial for most mission-critical applications in the near term, they said. "It is true that [64-bit technology] is gaining some momentum, but it is among small pockets of users who want it for very large databases for data mining and warehousing," said John Oltsik, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, in Cambridge, Mass. Windows 2000 will include 64-bit extensions, such as Very Large Memory, or VLM, capabilities. But Microsoft is trailing in the race to build a full 64-bit OS, as other OSes -- Digital Unix; SGI's Irix; IBM's AIX, OS/400, and OS/390; HP-UX; and Sun Solaris -- are already there. According to one source, Microsoft is engineering its future version of Windows 2000, dubbed Win64, to be processor-bit independent so that over time it can be easily moved to next-generation processors, such as 128-bit or 256-bit. "That would indicate a single source code that can be optimized for either [32-bit or 64-bit processors]," said Dwight Davis, a Kirkland, Wash.-based analyst at Summit Strategies. Because Merced is not expected until mid-2000, Microsoft has time to worry about matters at hand, such as delivering Windows 2000, (formerly known as Windows NT 5.0), in 1999. Still, the company is setting goals. "We will have 64-bit NT no later than the general availability of [Intel's] IA-64 architecture," said Ed Muth, group product manager for enterprise marketing at Microsoft. Muth added that this 64-bit functionality will likely be a point upgrade to Windows 2000, due in 1999. However, because both Unix and NT will run on Merced, Microsoft will face new competition for operating system market share on low-cost Intel boxes. "With Merced coming, it will be Unix and NT [competing] on the same box," said Mary Hubley, an analyst at the Gartner Group, in Delran, N.J. "If you want 64-bit systems, you're going to buy Unix [because that is what is shipping]." But that competitive point may be moot for now, Hubley added, because "people aren't dying for [64-bit] by the time Merced ships." In September, Microsoft obtained from Intel an updated emulator, which is software that simulates 64-bit instruction sets, for the IA-64 environment. "We are working to make it available to everybody," said an Intel official, in Santa Clara, Calif. Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Wash., is at www.microsoft.com. Bob Trott, based in Seattle, is a senior editor at InfoWorld. Ed Scannell is an InfoWorld editor at large. From MAILER-DAEMON@cs.depaul.edu Tue Dec 8 09:17:57 1998