64-bit Denial Syndrome

64-bit computing has been around for what seems like forever. Even Windows XP had a 64-bit version.
 
Yet here we are 10 years later and IT Professionals are resisting still resisting 64-bit software.

Background

I originally installed MS Office 2010 32-bit and later while doing a clean install of Windows I decided to try Office 64-bit. I was surprised by how much better Outlook ran in Office 64-bit, so I never went back to Office 32-bit. 
I don't really miss any addons.

Sure, Norton anti-spam doesn't work in Outlook 64-bit, but it wasn't something I used much. There is also no ASAP Utilities for 64-bit Excel yet. I found I can get by without it.
As for browsers, I use Waterfox, Opera 64-bit and IE9 64-bit on Windows 7. 

I expect readers can give many more examples of 32-bit software that needs an update.

A quick check using Process Explorer shows that 90% of the processes I'm now running are 64-bit.

Commentary

The one take-away I get from the comments on various forums is that many organisations are not producing native 64-bit versions (or even 64-bit compatible versions) of their software because they believe they don't have to.
To me that is just such a lame, short-sighted, luddite mind-set.

That attitude reminds me of a friend’s 15 year old who announced one day that he is not going to school anymore because legally, because he doesn’t have to. That was 15 years ago. Today his life is in ruins.

As John F Kennedy said:

"...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." 

Today we enjoy many technological benefits that came out of the Apollo program, miniaturisation of electronics being just one of them.

Some companies, chose to make the effort. As a result we now have 64-bit Java and 64-bit Silverlight and even 64-bit Flash (after a bit of pushing of Adobe by users).

The others still reckon it’s all just too hard, and they don’t have to. Perhaps ruination is also their destiny.