>John,
>
>I'm curious about the following...
>
>Why would anyone - even if all the tools were available - rush to 64-bit?

I don't think they will. For some reason, only around 130,000 US corporate desktops has installed XP SP 2.

Thats a low number - you have to dig deep to find the reasons.

I know why I am not installing SP 2 - I think it places a "Patriot Act" layer in the desktop to hide spyware from the prying eyes of the task manager as well any anti-spyware engines we use. I think MS agreed to implementing "back doors" for the government and NGOS as part of the "monopoly" suit settlement.

Now your thinking I've gone over the edge - but look at Coca Cola (as american as Coca Cola, right). It turns out that Joe Wilson, the guy who refuted the "yellow cake uranium" lies, was/is married to a CIA agent, Valerie Plume, who was, by the way, fronted as an Executive for Coca Cola and worked from behind a Coca Cola desk!

Anybody wanting US taxpayer dollars - for sure has agents at Coca Cola and MS!

IF Microsoft wants to take over the world, what better way than to "marry" her fortunes to the burgeoning "mind police" industry.

We are also entering a recession. IT industries are taking a big hit - smart managers will not buy into the "next and best greatest stuff of the week" as they used to. IT will hold on to its cash. IT managers will rely less on big bloated cube head teams - and - luckily for you and most of us on this board - will go back to hiring individual or small team project developers to solve their problems.

The guy who invented netscape said that when NS incorporated and built a management team he noticed that managers were hiring based on weather or not the people they hired had the competence to compete with them (the managers) for their job. He called it the "worst guy syndrome"!

People are going to economize and get the most out of their current assets (at least state side). MS does discount over seas wher she (MS) and other companies (Morgan Stanley) off shore their work. So the big shops, like MS, that off shore, will probably buy with their offshore accounts so they can enjoy those MS discounts as well as the cheap (yet highquality) engineers over their.


>
>I could see potential gains on moves from 8-16 and 16-32 when processors were slow and RAM was small (for both technical and monetary reasons). A 33mhz processor stood to gain significant speed using 32 bits, and I'd suppose it was similar up to the multiple-hundreds of mhz.
>But with processors at multi-Ghz, RAM proliferating, on-chip and on-board cache, PCI/AGP/PCI-X, SATA and SCSI width increases (and HDs now able to vary density to make full use of the outer cylinders capacities) I have to wonder.
>
>Your opinion?
>
>cheers
>
>
>>I don't see companies blindly moving to 64-bit applications when the tools aren't there.
>>
>>>I can accept that companies will run with their current 32 bit investments for some time, But all new apps will be developed with 64 bit toolsets - I cant see companies in a 64 Bit world paying top Dollar for 32 Bit applications, least ways not in little old South Africa.