Bob Muglia, Microsoft`s senior vice president for Windows Server, recently said that while the company intends to ship both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of its "Longhorn" client and server software some time in 2007, it plans to release only a 64-bit version of SBS in that time frame.

That statement made little sense to analysts, as the major benefit of 64-bit computing for small businesses is that it will allow many of their applications to run faster, even those that are 32-bit. However, many small-business workloads today do not need 64-bit computing, a point that many Microsoft officials have themselves conceded.

Guy Haycock, senior product manager for Windows SBS in Redmond, said that while the company is still considering whether to release a 32-bit version of SBS, despite what Muglia said last month, Microsoft is still pushing its customers to embrace 64-bit computing. Microsoft "is encouraging customers and partners to begin thinking about the transition to 64-bit computing and preparing for migration of applications [and so on] to the Windows x64 platform," Haycock said.