64-bit chips drive wedge among developers

By taking diverging paths in designing their forthcoming 64-bit processors, chip makers Intel, AMD - and to a lesser extent, Compaq and IBM - may soon be forcing software developers to choose sides.

As more details about the chip designs begings to emeerge, the departure from the previous generation of X86 code is raising concerns among developers, who may be forced to invest in multiple code bases and tools if they wish to create programs that run on all the competing chips.

An analysis of the divisive trend in 64-bit chip development appears in the article at www.zdnn.com .