By Chris Ward
Senior Solutions Architect – GreenPages

The history of 64-bit computing goes back decades and includes the likes of Sun, Silicon Graphics (SGI), Digital (DEC), and IBM. Even Intel and AMD have had their respective hats in the 64-bit ring for several years. So why hasn’t 64-bit become mainstream in the x86 server and workstation markets? Well, in actuality, 64-bit hardware has been mainstream in the x86 server and workstation market since 2003-2004 when AMD and Intel launched their first 64-bit enabled processors. All server and workstation class processors have been 64-bit capable since.

Since the hardware support has been around for four years, why hasn’t there been a barrage of 64-bit operating systems and applications introduced? The answer lies with the underlying differences in programming for 32- and 64-bit architectures. Writing fully enabled 64-bit operating system and application code differs greatly from the 32-bit world and attempting to maintain backwards compatibility with older 32-bit applications when the operating system is 64-bit can be a daunting task. Operating system and application vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe, Citrix, Symantec, etc. had to weigh the cost of developing 64-bit software and its potential advantages against staying with the tried and true 32-bit platform and, unfortunately, most vendors considered this cost to be too high.

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