Microsoft is readying two new versions of Windows, a release of Windows XP and another of Windows Server 2003, that will be able to exploit the 64-bit processing power of AMD's Opteron and Athlon processors, Microsoft confirmed Wednesday.

Beta releases of both the new desktop and new server releases will be out by mid-2003, according to Redmond officials.

A Microsoft spokesman declined to confirm whether Microsoft would package the AMD 64-bit support as a completly separate SKU — as today's Microsoft's press release made it sound — or would somehow roll the AMD 64-bit support into the existing 64-bit Intel SKUs. The spokesman added the the AMD versions would require a separate set of Windows binaries.

We have "no details yet on the upcoming AMD desktop and server products in terms of how they'll be packaged or when they will be (commercially) available," the spokesman said.

A year ago, almost to the day, AMD announced an agreement with Microsoft via which Microsoft would support the 64-bit processing power of AMD's forthcoming chips.

Read Last April's Microsoft-AMD Release

Dave Cutler, Sr. Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft's Windows Team and one of the lead developers of Windows Server, is said to favor Alpha and AMD chips and prefer developing on these non-Intel platforms.

AMD is slated to launch its Opteron server chip on April 22 in New York City. Opteron will be able to run the Windows Server 2003 releases that Microsoft will launch two days later, on April 24 in San Francisco.

Until Microsoft churns out the new Windows release tailored for Opteron, Windows customers will be able to exploit only the 32-bit processing power of Opteron.

AMD has said it plans to launch its desktop/notebook 64-bit Athlon processor in September. It originally had hoped to ship the chip by the end of last year.

Once Microsoft finalizes these two new AMD-tailored releases, it will have a boat-load of Windows client and server versions from which customers may choose. These include:

Desktop