Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Process Boy who wrote (95744)	1/12/2000 3:17:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

PB - Re: "We do not agree with its first two arguments and consider it far from certain that Intel will significantly benefit from accelerating server growth." Far from certain ? Server growth is ACCELERATING ! Intel's CPUs are dominant in the low end and mid-size servers - and ACCELERATING SERVER growth won't benefit Intel ? The ITanium is targeted at the HIGH end - where Intel has essentially ZERO market share - and ACCELERATING GROWTH in this area won't help Intel ? Yikes ! Sometimes I think these analysts are dumber than my dog ! Paul

To: Process Boy who wrote (95744)	1/12/2000 3:36:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

PB & Intel Investors - Microsofts Windows 2000 Ought to REALLY help sales this year - as Dan Niles and Charles Glavin have noted. Here's an explanation: "Microsoft claims that Windows 2000 Professional will run on a 133MHz Pentium and 64MB of RAM. Yeah, right. Our tests showed that you can forget about running Windows 2000 Professional on anything less than a Pentium Pro desktop with 128MB of RAM. And even on those systems, performance is sluggish. The operating system performs best on desktop and notebook systems with Pentium IIs or Pentium IIIs with 128MB of RAM. Increasing memory capacity beyond 128MB yielded negligible performance improvements in tests. The user experience for those migrating from Windows NT to Windows 2000 will be relatively positive. Our Ziff-Davis Winstone 99 test indicates about a 5 percent to 10 percent drop-off in performance when moving to Windows 2000, a difference most users will not notice. This drop-off is not surprising because hardware drivers have not been tuned for Windows 2000 the way they are for Windows NT." Paul {====================================} zdnet.com Win2K Professional is a Boon for Notebooks By Michael Caton, PC Week Labs, PC Week January 9, 2000 9:00 PM PT URL: PC Week Labs' tests of the release-to-manufacturing code of Windows 2000 show that the operating system is a significant improvement over Windows NT 4.0, but that sites should make the move sooner for portable systems and later for desktops. Microsoft Corp.'s release last month of Windows 2000 gold code gave us our first chance to measure the performance of the Professional Edition against its Windows 9x siblings and Windows NT predecessor, as well as to really dig into the deployment tools. (Read PC Week Labs' review of Windows 2000 Server release-to-manufacturing code.) In tests, Windows 2000 Professional handily outpaced notebook systems running Windows 9x and Windows NT (see chart). Windows 2000 Professional also offers improved security over NT, as well as plug-and-play support and power management capabilities on par with Windows 9x's (plugging a long-gaping hole in NT). All this makes Windows 2000 Professional a compelling upgrade for users running Windows 9x or NT on portable systems. The performance gains are not as great on the desktop, but Windows 2000 Professional in the corporate desktop environment should prove more reliable and easier to manage remotely. This will only happen over time, though. In addition, we found several driver incompatibilities when testing Windows 2000 on desktop systems, and the operating system's minimum hardware needs are pretty hefty. Sites will be best served by introducing the operating system to the desktop environment as new PCs are purchased. Upgrading newer Pentium II or better PCs will be a better option when hardware support improves. When it comes to upgrading either desktop or notebook environments, the best-case scenario is for companies to do bare-metal installs of the operating system and applications (format the systems' hard drives and reinstall). For sites with unmanaged notebook PCs, there are significant benefits to accelerating the upgrade process. Given the benefits of management through Active Directory for desktop systems, companies will be best served by upgrading the desktop environment after putting the server environment in place. No matter when the move to Windows 2000 is made, the migration will be pricey: Sites should expect costs on the same scale as those incurred in the upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. In addition to more beefy systems to run the operating system, training costs for both users and administrators will be high. On the surface, Windows 2000 looks very much like a cross between Windows 98 and Windows NT, but users will quickly find the differences. There is so much more to Windows 2000 than to NT — from the inclusion of file encryption to tighter integration with applications such as Microsoft's Office 2000 — that IT departments will need to provide formal training options for users. And because policy-based management is now far more powerful through Active Directory, sites that do not currently use policies should begin considering them as a means of reducing support calls caused by end users tweaking systems. Windows 2000 Professional, which will be released Feb. 17, costs $319 for a single user. Upgrade prices from Windows 9x and Windows NT are $219 and $149, respectively. Performance Microsoft claims that Windows 2000 Professional will run on a 133MHz Pentium and 64MB of RAM. Yeah, right. Our tests showed that you can forget about running Windows 2000 Professional on anything less than a Pentium Pro desktop with 128MB of RAM. And even on those systems, performance is sluggish. The operating system performs best on desktop and notebook systems with Pentium IIs or Pentium IIIs with 128MB of RAM. Increasing memory capacity beyond 128MB yielded negligible performance improvements in tests. The user experience for those migrating from Windows NT to Windows 2000 will be relatively positive. Our Ziff-Davis Winstone 99 test indicates about a 5 percent to 10 percent drop-off in performance when moving to Windows 2000, a difference most users will not notice. This drop-off is not surprising because hardware drivers have not been tuned for Windows 2000 the way they are for Windows NT. The big surprise came in the battery life benchmarking of four notebook PCs, where we saw improvements of up to 25 percent. The systems were running Windows 98. For these tests, we upgraded the Windows 98 operating system that had come preloaded on the notebooks. This resulted in the Windows 2000 upgrade program reporting numerous potential compatibility problems, including vendor-specific power management software. Plug-and-play support for PC Cards generally worked well — we even found driver support for a 5-year-old IBM Ethernet PC Card. However, it didn't take us plugging too many cards into a Windows 2000 notebook to come across one without driver support. At this time, Windows 2000 offers support for enough common hardware to get users baseline functionality out of their systems. The point at which users will find Windows 2000 hardware support lacking is when it comes to having the same level of control of hardware available on Windows 9x. Notebook-specific applications for controlling such functions as power management or DMI (Desktop Management Interface) aren't available yet. Management Windows 2000's policy-based management could theoretically mitigate some of the user training costs associated with the operating system, but major changes to the management tools from those in Windows 9x and Windows NT will mean managers will likewise need training and time to get up to speed on the new operating system. Sites that have been deploying Windows NT with the NT Resource Kit tools and Microsoft's system preparation tool will also need time to familiarize themselves with new deployment tools. For example, Windows 2000 Advanced Server includes a Remote Installation tool that will allow administrators to provide Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Bootstrap Protocol services so that PCs can remotely boot to the server and perform an unattended install of Windows 2000 Professional. This will be a huge boon to administrators if they can get it to work. We spent hours trying to do so — to no avail — before our deadline. In the end, running a scripted install from a management server such as Intel Corp.'s LANDesk (read review) would have been much easier. Executive Summary: Windows 2000 Professional USABILITY B CAPABILITY B PERFORMANCE C INTEROPERABILITY B MANAGEABILITY B Windows 2000 Professional is what Windows NT Workstation 4.0 always should have been. Windows 2000 Pro offers improved security over Windows NT 4.0, and it provides plug-and-play support and power management capabilities on par with Windows 9x's. The combination of impressive performance on notebooks and management gains from Windows 2000 Server makes Windows 2000 Professional a very compelling upgrade for notebook users. Windows 2000 performance is not as impressive on the desktop, and hardware support broad enough for administrators' satisfaction will take some time. Short-term Business Impact: Sites should not rush to deploy Windows 2000 Professional, and when they do, short-term return will be minimal. Long-term Business Impact: Windows 2000 Professional, combined with Windows 2000 Server, should reduce the cost of ownership for desktop and notebook PCs. But while management costs will be reduced, a richer skill set will be required of support personnel. Improved hardware support, including plug and play and power management; consistent user interface paradigm across the entire operating system; improved security for the end user; better management infrastructure. Many drivers and hardware management instrumentation not supported; management tools difficult to learn and use; requires the newest processors to run adequately. Microsoft Corp. Redmond, Washington (800) 426-9400 Scoring Methodology