I would expect most people to be really happy with a proposition of getting something for nothing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with 64-bit Windows. I wrote about this a little while ago. IDC have recently published an White Paper on it:
One of the biggest missed opportunities among today’s customer base may be the lack of use of 64-bit x86 Windows Server solutions to boost performance, scale, and utilization rates. Overlooked by many customers potentially for the wrong reasons, 64-bit Windows Server solutions offer a compatibility story that can be misunderstood, leaving customers to make deployment decisions that prevent them from enjoying the technology already installed in their shops.
Let me reiterate one of the main points here because many people still do not understand this point – you already have it available.
- The servers you already have are all that you require.
- The licenses you already have are all that you require.
I’ve tried to think of an analogy for this for some time and I’m struggling, I think because it is so unusual for people to ignore what they already have.
- It’s a bit like buying a 160GB hard disk and creating a 2GB partition on it.
- It’s a bit like buying two 4 seater cars to drive 4 people around because you only want to use 2 seats.
- It’s a bit like buying a 4 bedroom house for a family of 4 and everyone sleeping in 1 bedroom.
- It’s a bit like buying a 5.1 surround sound system and only plugging 1 speaker in.
I think you are probably getting the point now.
The graphs of adoption that are shown are striking:
That’s a huge amount of potential.
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Graham Chastney 
But isn’t this partly due to the fact that most servers don’t just run the base OS, they run standard applications be they simple monitoring applications or complex bespoke applications and in many cases it is the reluctance to risk outages caused by OS/Application incompatibilities which has depressed adoption.
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Perhaps some of it is to do with Apps. but most Windows servers I see going in are doing one of the following:
– File
– Print
– SQL Server
– IIS
– Active Directory
All of which gain significant benefits from 64-bit, but they are still being deployed as 32-bit.
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“it is so unusual for people to ignore what they already have”
I’m not so sure, I can think of a few examples where tools are crippled, functionality removed, or features just ignored.
Now there may or may not be good reasons for it, but we’ve all heard stories such as Lotus Notes just used for email, Sametime just for chat.
So I’m not sure its an OS/Apps clear-cut thing, rather the (overly?) complex nature of many organisations IT systems, and the difficulties we have relating change to the business’ bottom line effectively.
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The other point which Simon considers and touches on is the OS itself. How many servers are sold and run linux? The enterprise is becoming a decreasing proportion of the install base, web services and providors are all increasing their utilisation of servers without necessarily running windows on x86 based hardware.
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Can you substantiate the claim Stu that corporate are becoming a decreasing proportion?
I suspect you are right but I have never seen any numbers that show it to be true.
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