WinHEC Promotes Upcoming Releases

Delivering Beta 2 versions of the next versions of Windows Server, the Windows desktop OS, and Office, Microsoft made a strong pitch at its annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) for partners, manufacturers, and ISV to get behind the company’s platform over the next two years. The conference, held in Seattle in May 2006, featured few breakthrough hardware demonstrations, but showed off more mature versions of several technologies that had been demonstrated only as mockups in the past.

Gates on Trends

In opening remarks at the conference, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates outlined four continuing hardware trends in the computer industry: smaller form factors and new types of mobile devices, ubiquitous wireless connectivity, major processor changes such as x64-bit and multicore designs, and continuing broadband penetration and speed.

Gates gave the IT industry “high marks” for what he called a smooth and rapid transition to 64-bit CPUs, and showed charts indicating that x64 processors and multicore processors will approach 100% of the total server, desktop, and portable markets by the end of 2009 (with x64 servers hitting that mark by the end of 2007).