Longhorn and Exchange 12 - 64 bit or is 32 bit out there?
This topic kind of caught me off guard a couple of weeks ago. I remember hearing very clearly (OK, I read it from several very reputably sources) that Exchange 12 would only be offered in 64 bit. I also remember hearing that Vista would be available in both 32 bit and 64 bit. The one that was fuzzy to me is regarding Longhorn server. I have heard that it would only be offered in 64 bit, but that was semi-wrong.
OK, so, to set it straight as of today:
- Longhorn Server will be offered in 32 bit and 64 bit when it first releases. The R2 version will be 64 bit only.
- Exchange 12 will be offered in 32 bit for demonstration, evaluation, and educational purposes. It will be fully featured.
- Exchange 12 will be offered in 64 bit for production environments and will be the only version fully supported for production.
OK, that is very odd to me. Why would Microsoft bring out 32 bit versions of Longhorn and Exchange 12 when it would mean an extra investment in maintenance of code bases and extra development efforts? The issue seems to be based on virtual machines.
Virtual Server 2005 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 can be run on 64 bit hardware, but they can only emulate 32 bit guest environments. So, after pushing organizations to use virtualization for testing, and after a significant investment in virtualization for training purposes, we have a problem. Well, Microsoft has a problem.
Until Virtual Server is able to run 64 bit guests, there appears to be a big road block.
Stay tuned for the next change. :)