Windows 97, Windows 98, Windows 99?
Wired News Vaporware Team
4:58am 31.Dec.97.PST
Microsoft's next version of Windows 95 and NT -
Windows 98 and NT 5.0, as far as we know - are
supposed to be delivered in 1998. The two
platforms will mark a fork in the road for Windows
users: Windows 98 and successive upgrades will
be designed for home users, while NT will become
the dominant business desktop platform.
In the spring of 1997, Microsoft said that Memphis
- then the codename for Windows 97 - would ship
by the end of the year. But in July, Microsoft
revised the date to the first quarter of 1998. Now
that goal has morphed into "first half of 1998," a
company spokesperson said last week.
"There was a change announced in September so
that Windows 3.1 and 95 would be upgraded at
the same time, and that was the reason [for the
delay]," the spokesperson said. "Customers and
retailers were confused about that, so we did it for
them."
NT 5.0, meanwhile, first codenamed Cairo,
previewed in late 1996 as a set of technologies to
upgrade NT 4.0. At the time, Microsoft said NT 5.0
would ship in the second half of 1997.
Last week, a spokesperson said that the NT
server and workstation OSes will be available in
the second half of 1998. Meanwhile, analysts and
other industry watchers have been speculating
that 1999 is a more realistic time frame.
Here's hoping users will still be alive when it ships.
"[Windows 98] has few changes in look, feel, and
performance warranting two years work, except
swelling its post-install size to easily over 150
megs," wrote Wired News reader Matt Frankland.
"The Microserfs have too many projects in the
works in their plot of world domination. After
mushrooming out, they need to reorganize and
focus on fewer projects."
o~~~ O |
