“Microsoft recently released a preliminary 64-bit version of
Windows 2000, and developers are beginning to write applications
for it. AMD’s chips will not be able to run such software, but the
company is producing its own 64-bit platform, choosing to expand
the current 32-bit x86 architecture rather than write a new
instruction set from scratch. The company says it will debut the
x86-64 platform with the as-yet unnamed family of processors
sometime in the first half of 2002. Chips in the line will support
four- and eight-way multiprocessing.”
“Microsoft isn’t likely to build an operating system for these
chips, so AMD is looking elsewhere — namely to the Linux community
for a 64-bit version of that operating system. Initially, AMD may
be at a disadvantage in terms of software support, but the
Athlon chips and the Linux operating system should prove less
costly than the Itanium paired with Windows 2000, providing 64-bit
computing to businesses that otherwise couldn’t afford
it.”