Microsoft has been working with partners to support more than 64 processors for Windows applications and device drivers. IBM, Intel and HP today joined Bill Laing, corporate vice president of Windows Server and Solutions, during his keynote address to showcase the scalability benefits of supporting more than 64 processors, a new feature of Windows Server 2008 R2. This capability allows customers to take advantage of the latest hardware advancements for improved performance.

"Customers need to be able to support ever-larger and more mission-critical workloads while keeping their costs under control," said Martin Fink, senior vice president of Business Critical Systems at HP. "HP and Microsoft are collaborating closely to support 256 logical processors with HP Integrity servers, to bring customers the most massively scalable, mission-critical platform for Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server."

"IBM and Microsoft have worked closely to extend Windows support beyond 64 threads for x86 platforms," said James Northington, vice president of IBM System x. "IBM's System x servers with eX4, the fourth generation of IBM's Enterprise X Architecture-based chipset for Intel processor-based servers, delivers up to 192 threads of processing capability within a single systems image. This extended Windows capability enables businesses to optimally consolidate more and more workload or deploy larger and larger databases on IBM eX4-based systems."

"The scale-up segment of the server market is increasingly adopting solutions built around Intel's Xeon and Itanium processors," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel's Server Platforms Group. "By pairing the performance and scalability of these processors with Windows Server 2008 R2's support for more than 64 processors, Intel and Microsoft are helping customers deploy more cost-effective server solutions for their most mission-critical business intelligence, enterprise resource planning and line-of-business applications."