>>>>I am interested to hear from forum members how important (or not) you think it is to be able to offer 64 bit applications vs. 32 bit currently (regardless of language used). Do you feel that being able to offer 64 bit exes is important or not really an issue in the field of general business applications?
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>>>A 64-bit application will actually be slower than a 32-bit application in many cases.
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>>But do you think it is important to be able to deliver in 64 bit (within the next several years) or do you think it's just not an issue?
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>I think this is one of the cases where most users have absolutely no idea about what they need. Will they need it? No. But will they ask for it? Yes, for sure. It's just like people who believe that the camera with the highest number of pixels is the best camera.
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>You ask for the importance of being able to deliver a 64 bit application. I would say that it's our job to make sure that people are told that the application is 64-bit compliant. That's all they really need to know.

That is absolutely correct, what I would add is that especially in software design we are often tempted to solve problems that may (or may not) arise in the future.

Every time we do this, it is a big mistake, because firstly we don't even know if that future event we anticipate ever happens, secondly if it happens, the entire stage may be different from what we anticipated and the problem has shifted to an entirely different level, and thirdly, if it eventually happens the way we predicted, the solution may be much easier to solve at that time than it is now, because technology and resources have caught up as well.

This rule may not be applicable 100% in this case, but in general it became my law, never ever to try to solve problems that may happen in the future, (unless the client specifically requires it and has a very specific idea what you need to do), because I fell into this trap before and always it was a failure.