SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft will shortly announce what it is doing to support AMD's Opteron processor, which officially launches on the 22nd of April.
The news puts an end to speculation for months as to how Microsoft will support the 32-64 bit chip. Microsoft competitors SuSE, Mandrake and Red Hat will all have working versions of their Linux OSes at launch.
The firm will say it is developing native 64-bit versions of its Windows operating system for both the Athlon 64 and the Opteron.
Server and desktop betas are expected to be available in the middle of the year, Microsoft will say.
The official introduction of AMD's Opteron is the 22nd of April.
The 64-bit versions of XP and Windows Server 2003 will be used for engineering, financial services, OLTP, data, content creatiion, gaming, and CAD.
Earlier today, the INQUIRER reported that Microsoft is readying a 64-bit version of SQL Server designed for the AMD platform. µ
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http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8827
Microsoft confirms 64-bit support for AMD Opteron, Athlon64
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