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Win 2000 may be slightly delayed
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If you were among those expecting Microsoft Corp. to ship Windows 2000
by mid-1999, don't hold your breath.
Beta 3 of the long-awaited operating system is now not expected to reach
testers until April, Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) officials confirm.
And Microsoft itself, in a tacit acknowledgment that Windows 2000 won't
be a first-half product, told resellers this week that it is extending its
Windows NT Server 4.0 upgrade promotion through June 30.
If Windows 2000 slips much beyond a mid-year ship date, Microsoft
could find itself facing head-on problems that the company has claimed are
figments of analysts' imaginations: Namely, that IS departments, faced with
Year 2000 budget concerns, may hold off for a year or more from
deploying Windows 2000 en masse.
Microsoft officials this week acknowledged that April is now the Beta 3
target, and claim any date slippage in the beta won't negatively impact the
final ship date.
"We're still shooting, hopefully, for an end of year ship date," says a
corporate spokeswoman. "We are still expecting we can get it out before
year-end."
Beta tests on hold?
Microsoft steadfastly has declined to say exactly when to expect Windows
2000 to ship, other than to claim that most flavors of the product will be
available before the end of calendar 1999.
Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server are slated to ship in 1999,
with the higher-end Datacenter Server following within 60 days,
Microsoft officials have maintained.
Microsoft shipped in mid-December Release Candidate 0 of Windows
2000 Beta 3.
To many, that was a sign that the company was close to finalizing the code
which Microsoft is expected to make available to tens, if not hundreds, of
thousands of testers. At that time, Microsoft officials said Beta 3 would
ship in the first quarter of 1999.
Beta 3 in April?
Since December, Microsoft has made a number of subsequent release
candidates available to small groups of select testers. But according to
sources close to Microsoft, the company is now talking April as the date
when U.S. testers will be able to obtain Windows 2000 Beta 3 code.
Meanwhile, testers outside the U.S. are being told that
Microsoft will crank up its Windows 2000 Corporate
Preview Program in March, according to Nate Mook,
Webmaster with BetaNews.Com.
Mook says that testers in Austria, Switzerland, Germany
and the United Kingdom will be able to order preview
copies of Windows 2000 Beta 3 and Office 2000 Beta 2
together.
In the past, notes Mook all of Microsoft's public betas
have been available in the U.S. only. But, "at the moment,
no public Windows 2000 Beta 3 release has been
announced for United States consumers," he says.
Resellers in dark, too
In another sign that Windows 2000 is running late,
resellers say they were told this week that Microsoft is
extending its price reduction for its Windows NT Server
4.0 upgrade promotion through the end of June.
Customers who upgrade to NT 4.0 from previous NT
versions or competitive operating systems between
May 8, 1998, and June 30, 1999, are now eligible for
the reduced-cost upgrade. Microsoft is even throwing
in a free copy of Microsoft Services for NetWare,
which sells for $149, as an added incentive for
customers to upgrade as part of the promotion.
How much later than June Windows 2000 will ship is
anyone's guess.
Last year, market researchers at Gartner Group were advising clients to
exercise caution in implementing Windows 2000 "due to the number of
new functions and the lack of available skills for NT Server v.5.0
[Windows 2000], but mainly because of the conflict of staff resources with
those needed to prepare for 2000."
Wait to deploy
At the time Gartner issued this note, it expected Windows 2000 to ship in
Q2 1999. It was advising all but its most risk-taking customers to wait for
at least one or two service packs before deploying the new operating
system.
Summit Strategies is a little less dire in its predictions. "If Microsoft has a
solid [Beta 3], it still could hit Q3 1999 for production," says Summit
analyst Dwight Davis. "If it slips into Q4, it's questionable as to whether
Microsoft will ship it or wait for next year. But Platinum [Exchange
Server 6.0] and other new Microsoft products are gated on this, so
Microsoft needs to get it out there.
zdnet.com
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