To All: This should make those that feel MSFT isn't ready for the next wave take another look:
Comdex '99: Windows 2000 comes clean
by Jay Greene
Seattle Times technology reporter
LAS VEGAS - Microsoft, often criticized over the performance of its industrial-strength operating system, sent out a message yesterday: Its long-awaited Windows 2000 will be reliable enough to run heavily trafficked Web sites.
Reliability has been Microsoft's big bugaboo with Windows NT, the powerful operating system used primarily in corporate computing systems. Company executives acknowledged that the company isn't known for handling massive quantities of data.
"We know we don't have the reputation today," said Deborah Willingham, Microsoft's vice president of marketing for its business and enterprise division.
But in presentations and demonstrations yesterday at the huge Comdex computer trade show, the company contended that Windows 2000, the next version of NT due to be launched Feb. 17, should change that perception.
Microsoft has spent $160 million solely on efforts to improve the reliability of the much-delayed Windows 2000. The company threw resources at the problem to minimize the number of blue screens, which indicate that the system has shut down.
Jim Allchin, the Microsoft senior vice president in charge of Windows, began a speech to reporters by calling himself the "complaint department for Windows." But he said the complaints were turned into product improvements, and that Windows 2000 can handle massive quantities of Web data.
Microsoft got a separate boost for Windows 2000 from Unisys, which has developed an e-commerce platform using the operating system. Unisys set up a demonstration to illustrate a Web site that receives 3 billion hits a day and will run nonstop for five days. Microsoft is using the news to stifle arguments that Windows 2000 is not reliable.
"It's not true," Unisys Chairman Larry Weinbach said. "This stuff is real."
Additionally, Unisys believes it will be able to charge from one-third to one-fifth the price of competing systems.
In an interview, Allchin acknowledged that delaying Windows 2000 so the company could work out the kinks was better than the alternative.
"When all is said and done, I suppose we've disappointed some customers because of the date," Allchin said. "But customers will forgive us for being late. They won't forgive us for knocking down their systems."
Allchin also thinks the effort has paid off. In all the feedback it has received from the companies that are running early versions of Windows 2000, Microsoft has not heard any complaints about reliability.
"None," said Allchin. "Literally none."
Microsoft still needs to convince customers that Windows 2000 is more reliable and less expensive than competitors' systems. But the demonstrations go a long way toward illustrating the strengths of the new operating system.
"It's taken a long time to get there, but this is legitimate," said Dwight Davis, an analyst with Summit Strategies.
Davis believes the reliability of the system, shown repeatedly at Comdex, should boost Windows 2000 sales.
"There will be faster uptakes of Windows 2000 than a lot of people were predicting," Davis said.
Jay Greene's phone: 206-464-3287. E-mail: jgreene@seattletimes.com
JFD |
