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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. P. who wrote (31270)	10/28/1999 4:41:00 PM
From: Jim Lamb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

IBM To Adopt Win 2000 Company-Wide (10/28/99, 2:00 p.m. ET) By Madeleine Acey, TechWeb IBM is set to become one of the biggest early adopters of Windows 2000 and plans to standardize its many desktops on the long-awaited Microsoft operating system worldwide. Big Blue's integrated solutions marketing manager Dick Sullivan told journalists in London this week that Windows 2000 Professional would be the company's desktop OS of choice across the enterprise when it becomes available next year. The company will buy 300,000 copies, he said. "We have a standard desktop across the corporation and ours will be Windows 2000, with Notes and Lotus Smartsuite," Sullivan said. However IBM's confidence in Microsoft's new baby was not unwavering. Asked how many service packs Win 2000 would require before it was stable and trusted, Sullivan said "probably two." "On the server side, people are going to be very cautious," he said. Sullivan added that the client would be the first thing to roll out in big numbers as there was a lot of pent-up demand from people who had been waiting to upgrade from NT 4.0. Win 2000 is a complex operating system -- not just the next version of NT, he said. IBM is working to integrate the OS with its own applications, he said. "Windows 2000 is going to be a very successful OS, so we want it to work right for our customers for the applications they want to use," Sullivan said. "It's not going to be a heterogeneous environment, they still have a lot to learn. There's a long way to go for heterogeneous integration." E-commerce -- specifically transaction applications -- would be some of the crucial software packages to integrate, he said. Microsoft Windows product marketing manager Nick McGrath said he was pleased with the news of IBM's adoption of Win 2000. "It's exciting to see that a company as diverse in its operations as IBM is embracing Windows 2000 Professional across its desktops," McGrath said. "It's a clear endorsement of how Windows 2000 Professional is the best OS for businesses of all sizes." He said he isn't sure if IBM is the OS's biggest customer so far, but he looks forward to more contracts of a similar size.