We are getting a new server in-house that is going to be hosting our production web applications and sql server databases. We are migrating off a hosted environment with a hosting company which runs Windows Server 2003. I guess all our 3rd party software is 32-bit and the recommendation (of the vendor from whom we purchased the new hardware and os) is to upgrade to the 64-bit versions. Does anyone know how involved this is (is it just contacting the 3rd pary, paying for the upgrade and installing it) and why it's necessary? Does it just make more sense to have all your software the best it can be? And someone tossed out the reason yesterday during a conference call that you want to avoid the emulation layer - what is that?

As always, thanks.