Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft Server and Tools, announced at the IT Forum being held in Barcelona, Spain that while the first release of the upcoming next-version Windows Server family code-named Longhorn will be both 32-bit and 64-bit, the future update release to that, known as Windows Server "Longhorn" R2, will bring the complete transition to 64-bit-only hardware.
"We"re betting big on 64-bit, but we believe in the right 64-bit for the job. In that context, Exchange 12 will be 64-bit only; Longhorn R2, Centro and our small-business Longhorn Edition will be 64-bit only," Bob Kelly, general manager of infrastructure server marketing at Microsoft said.
"These are important transitions for customers, and we wanted to signal early so they can plan and that the right ecosystem changes occur to enable a full set of solutions around that," Kelly said.
Asked about the hardware requirement that would be necessary for customers making the move to 64-bit computing, Kelly said that most new hardware available today was already x64 and that customers with legacy hardware would be able to run a mixed mode of 32-bit and 64-bit.
"But they will not be able to run Exchange 12 on 32-bit gear. This is an important leap, particularly in the case of Exchange where the mail store requires massive scalability and the limits on memory have customers bumping into that," he said.