Unlike the existing 64-bit version designed for Intel's Itanium, the 64-bit versions coming out this spring will support both existing 32-bit and 64-bit applications and show considerable performance improvements in select applications such as databases.

Microsoft is readying the launch of its long-awaited Windows Server 2003 x64 editions next month at its annual conference for hardware developers. At an Intel 64-bit Xeon event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Andy Lees, corporate vice president of server and tools business at Microsoft, said the official introduction of the 64-bit extended editions at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (HEC) 2005 in Seattle in late April. Unlike the existing 64-bit version designed for Intel's Itanium, the 64-bit versions coming out this spring will support both existing 32-bit and 64-bit applications and show considerable performance improvements in select applications such as databases. This will enable more customers to integrate existing 32-bit applications and experiment with 64-bit computing on the same platform.