Last week I met with a friend who works for MSFT who I have been discussing AMD with and who was also at a presentation given by Bill G last week.

Apparently Bill G taked about the forthcoming 64 bit processors saying that AMD had a simple and (32 bit) compatible approach to 64-bit while Intel's Itanium had a completely new architecture that would need software to be re-written for it. Bill ended the subject by saying that MSFT will be supporting both processors.

What I got from this snippet was that:-

1. MSFT are aware of the potential difficulties on getting the public to buy a new processor that wouldn't run their existing software. Potentially difficult for MSFT, bad for Intel, and good for AMD.

2. MSFT will be supporting the AMD 64 bit hammer processor. A no-brainer? Probably, but it's nice to have those words come out of Bill G's mouth.

FWIW,

Fritz