"as Microsoft plans to roll-out its operating systems for x86-64 chips sometime in early 2004."

...more likely sometime in early 2005, unless they have time machine ;)

Early 2006? :)

The bad on that X86-64 is that Intel still has zero committment on what Prescotts are compatible and what are not. This is the whole hyperthreading debacle all over again only worse, because this will be a mainstream ability in 2005.

Of course do they care? Nope! They just want to sell the idiots who bought too early a new cpu in 2005. This is horrible customer service and people should take note of it.

Now the dual core licensing thing? Microsoft is setting the mold here, and I think its the right one. There was a similar issue when Hyperthreading came out, but I think it was easier to judge on since performance didn't really increase much. This current standpoint is the right one. It lets the industry advance. It lets them prepare for Longhorn sales. And its not like MS isn't already charging a fair penny for their OS's now. And of course you're likely to see better dual core support, maybe ANY dual core support only in XP Pro and later Longhorn Pro versions. That's a guess, but it's an easy and logical way to divide up your target markets.

We don't always have things to laud MS for, but this decision is certainly one of them. Kudos.