The Dawn of a New Computing Era

You'd be surprised at how often those words (or some very similar variation) show up in the introduction of a first-draft article. If you read our collection of first drafts, you'd find that everything from MS-DOS to the Regmon utility has ushered in "the dawn of a new computing era".  While both of those things - and everything in between - are important and exciting, not every topic is exactly revolutionary (evolutionary, perhaps - but is it really "the dawn of a new computing era?")

Don't get me wrong - this is not a reflection on our authors.  Actually, while we joke about it a bit (we like to keep the mood light here at TechNet Magazine headquarters), I think it's a very positive attribute in those who write for our magazines (both TechNet Magazine and MSDN Magazine).  Each and every one of them is excited about technology and about what they do, and they're writing for us so that they can share their experiences with you.

That being said, every once in a while you do come across that next major evolution.  64-bit technology is certainly not brand new, but it's now reaching that tipping point - the place in time where the world starts to shift a bit. Exchange Server 2007 is the first product Microsoft has shipped that requires 64-bit hardware in production.  It certainly won't be the last.  New server hardware is almost exclusively 64-bit now, and we're even seeing the scales starting to move in the desktop space.  The possibilities this unlocks - not only in system performance, but in what our computing platforms are capable of - are truly inspiring. 

In our most recent issue, Wes Miller discusses his experience with 64-bit hardware in our regular desktop column, The Desktop Files (which he cleverly titled "When I'm x64").  I hope you enjoy it.

-Josh