Microsoft chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates formally and finally ushered Windows into the world of 64-bit computing on Monday delivering 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional and laying out the company’s plans for delivering a raft of exploitive 64-bit applications over the course of this year and next.Gates, as expected, also demonstrated the latest progress made on its next generation 64-bit operating system, codenamed Longhorn, saying the company remains on track to deliver the product for the holiday season in 2006. Microsoft plans to deliver the first significant beta to developers at the company’s Professional Developers Conference this September.“The changeover to 64-bit computing (from 32-bit computing) will happen much more quickly than any other platform changeover. I think it will be the driving force behind Windows for the next decade but it will bring us our greatest level of competition as well,” Gates said during his keynote address at the company’s annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. By the end of this year Microsoft will deliver 64-bit versions of SQL Server, Commerce Server 2005, Host Integration Server 2005, BizTalk Server, and Services for Unix, Gates said. In 2006 and 2007 Microsoft will deliver the Longhorn client and server versions, along with Exchange Server, Microsoft Operations Manager and its Virtual Server 2.0. During Gates’ keynote the company also introduced a new family of graphics technologies, code-named Metro, which they believe will offer a unified framework to address the growing use of document-based workflows. The technologies also include advanced graphics and extended color information in documents and Web-based applications.The purpose of the Metro products is to simplify the creation, sharing, printing, viewing and archiving of digital documents, while also improving image fidelity and print performance. Metro will employ an open document format and uses XML as well as other standards for helping exchange data among a range of different platforms. Company officials said on Monday they expect to complete the Metro specification sometime during Longhorn’s development cycle.In the demonstration of Longhorn Microsoft focused on the product’s visualization capabilities including folders and icons that graphically depict their actual content thereby proving live snapshots of the documents. They also showed off how documents can be created and organized based on metadata, authors, subjects and even keywords.Microsoft also announced its Longhorn Ready PC Program which is intended to offer guidance for hardware makers for their next generation of PCs. The hardware requirements included a modern CPU, 512 megabytes of memory and a graphics card capable of supporting the Longhorn Display Driver Model. The company also on Monday announced plans to release the first public beta of Windows Server 2003 R2 “shortly,” officials said. In addition to the enhancements now in Service Pack 1, the updated release includes more options for connecting to and controlling identities and access management, managing branch servers, and setting up and managing storage options.— By Ed Scannell, reporting live from WinHEC in Seattle Software Development