IE4: To bundle or not to bundle?
Microsoft Issues Windows 98 Beta 02/25/98
Newsbytes, Wednesday, February 25, 1998 at 15:44
HONG KONG, CHINA, 1998 FEB 25 (NB) -- By Neil Taylor, IT Daily
Microsoft [NASDAQ:MSFT] has officially released the first and final
public beta edition of Windows 98.
Release 3.0 of the new beta is the first step in Microsoft's short
but intense marketing campaign for the successor to Windows 95. The
finished product is scheduled for commercial release by June at the
latest.
Not surprisingly, journalists at the launch event were more interested
in the inclusion of Internet Explorer than in the system's latest
features. Whatever the result of the US Department of Justice lawsuit,
currently suspended until April, Elsie Kung, product manager for
Microsoft Hong Kong's desktop and business systems division, said
Microsoft would go ahead with the bundling of the browser with the
operating system. "Our position on IE 4 remains the same. Our position
is that IE 4 is not a bundle, it's more of an improvement."
Should the suit go against Microsoft, Kung said there were no plans to
release different US and international versions in order to continue
bundling Explorer overseas. "There's no plan B," she said. "As of now,
IE is part of the enhancement of the operating system. It's not like
an extra product that we just put in the box."
Besides the Explorer question, Microsoft staff were faced with the
challenging task of promoting the new operating system, while avoiding
knocking Windows 95 or giving the impression that the new program could
be used instead of Windows NT Workstation.
"Who's it aimed at? Definitely the consumer. It will be a cool upgrade
for home users," Kung said. She added that the program would also be
targeted at the small to medium-sized enterprise market, where many
companies may have hardware limitations. "NT workstation offers you
more reliability, more features for enterprise users."
Windows 98 contains a large number of refinements, bug fixes, and new
features.
Installation has been improved for both home and professional users,
with troubleshooting wizards and a new feature named Batch 98, which
allows network managers to install the OS on multiple machines
simultaneously.
Disk management has been greatly improved, with the long-anticipated
upgrade to FAT32, which cuts cluster size down dramatically; in the
case of drives of one-two gigabytes, cluster size can be reduced from
32 to 4 K. A conversion utility has been included so that upgraders
can convert their drives without loss of data.
A wide range of scripting and networking enhancements have also been
added, including PPTP and support for multiple modems. Improved
hardware support includes Universal Serial Bus, DVD, IEEE 1394, which
allows connection of high speed devices (up to 400 megabits-per-second)
and hot plug and play.
Macintosh users will recognise another Mac standard in support for
multiple displays. Windows 98 can now support up to eight simultaneous
displays running on a single machine. This feature will allow users to
run, for example, a hypertext markup language (HTML) editor in one
window while viewing the results in another.
Officially, minimum requirements for the system are a 486 processor,
eight megabytes (MB) of RAM and 70MB of hard drive space. Unofficially,
staff conceded that the true minimum should be a Pentium 100 megahertz
(MHz) with 16MB of RAM and up to 300MB of hard drive space for a full
install.
The third beta of the traditional and simplified Chinese edition is
currently under testing in Taiwan and should be released in two to
three weeks, said Kung.
Microsoft is selling the final release version to its US and Canadian
customers for US$29.95 plus US$5 shipping. The software has a built-in
time limitation of December 31, 1998.
Reported by Newsbytes News Network newsbytes.com |
