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

To: Captain Jack who wrote (37911)	2/15/2000 4:42:00 PM
From: Ian Davidson	Respond to of 74651

Dell moves key Web site to Windows 2000 By Stephen Shankland Staff Writer, CNET News.com February 15, 2000, 11:30 a.m. PT update SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft has described Windows 2000 as a "bet-the-ranch" software project, and Dell Computer apparently agrees, having recently moved its own Web site over to the new operating system. That Web site is responsible for half of the PC maker's revenue, Dell Computer chief executive Michael Dell said at a keynote address here this morning. Web site stability was a problem for the PC maker late last year. "Windows 2000 will be key to building the Internet," Dell said, kicking off a three-day launch event for the business-class operating system. The event culminates in the official launch of the much-anticipated OS Thursday. Dell's Windows 2000 enthusiasm contrasts somewhat with his recent comments in a conference call that the Linux operating system, considered an alternative to Microsoft Windows, was gaining momentum, and that there was no rush of corporate customers upgrading hardware systems for the new OS. After the keynote, Dell downplayed those remarks. Microsoft representatives called him about what he said, but their concerns were diminished when they listened to a recording of the conference call, Dell said. "I believe the adoption rate will be strong. I don't think it will be determined by my speeches," he said. Dell today stressed the importance of e-commerce and the role of the new OS in that market. "If you imagine this whole Internet economy, there's a tremendous amount of friction in this world in the way the economy works," he said. By tying businesses together through data exchange standards such as XML (Extensible Markup Language), Windows 2000 will help "remove that friction." Dell personnel demonstrated an 11 percent performance gain in switching from Windows NT to Windows 2000 in a demonstration of Dell's own Web site. In addition, Ford Motor's chief information officer said his company will be moving many of its basic business processes to the new OS this year. Dell touted the new operating system's stability and said a solid Net connection is vital to business. Repeating a message heard from numerous companies these days, Dell said Internet connectivity is "as fundamental as electricity is in your infrastructure." The CEO also focused on Unix. He said that Windows 2000 will coexist with Unix servers but eventually replace some. The increased power and stability of the new OS "will allow us to further encroach on the Unix market. It's a matter of embracing and working with (those Unix systems) and also replacing them at the same time." After the speech, Dell indicated that his company no longer is considering Solaris, Sun's version of Unix, for use when Intel's new 64-bit Itanium chip debuts. Instead, he said Dell is favoring Linux and Monterey-64, a product that merges versions of Unix from IBM and Santa Cruz operation. Dell also said that it would unveil its hosting business in about two weeks. That business is a service that will allow customers to rent access to Dell servers with Windows 2000 instead of setting up the servers themselves. In Palm Springs, at the Intel Developer's Forum, some of the focus was on the power consumption of Windows 2000 and how it relates to chip speeds. Pat Gelsinger, an Intel vice president, said the new OS requires 250 more megahertz of chip power to get the equivalent user experience. Analysts at the Intel event said that was a fairly large speed bump and were surprised that a close Microsoft ally would say that. News.com's Michael Kanellos contributed to this report.

To: Captain Jack who wrote (37911)	2/15/2000 4:52:00 PM
From: Captain Jack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Feb 15, 2000 (Tech Web - CMP via COMTEX) -- Just two days before the long-awaited launch of Windows 2000, Microsoft is denying reports that the operating system has a security flaw. The company is also not commenting on reports that the new OS is plagued with 63,000 bugs. The security flaw came to light when archrival Novell said in a report on its website that some network administrators on an Active Directory network can use their access to the network to get confidential data such as payroll and legal information, even if they have been explicitly blocked from accessing that data. Novell, which offers a competing directory called NDS, said the design of Active Directory breaks a fundamental model of security. Typically, only a few trusted network administrators are given access rights to sensitive information and systems in business units such as the payroll and legal departments. Network administrators with legitimate access to those resources can put blocks in place to prevent other network administrators from accessing this sensitive data. But Active Directory gives some network administrators with access elsewhere on the network the ability to lift the blocks and access the information and systems from which they were supposed to be locked out. But Microsoft said there is no security hole in Active Directory. While a select number of administrators can remove the block on an object as described by Novell, the capability is fully auditable, meaning the owner of the object will know that the change has been made. Moreover, this power is necessary to be sure that objects don't become orphaned if the administrator in charge of an object is no longer available to access the object. "It isn't a vulnerability," said Steve Litner, manager of the security response center at Microsoft. "The key factor is always to provide the protection mechanisms and a degree of auditability so you can know what's happening." Analysts said the alleged security hole isn't surprising, considering Active Directory is new technology and will take some time to shake out. "This is a very complex system," said Tony Iams, an analyst at D.H. Brown Associates. "It's not really that surprising. The thing to watch is how quickly Microsoft responds." GartnerGroup analyst Michael Gartenberg said the alleged security hole should not dissuade users from installing Windows 2000, but users need to first test it to see if the security hole exists and whether it will be a problem for them. Iams and Gartenberg said they had not confirmed the existence of the security hole for themselves; indeed, no independent confirmation could be found on Monday. Also putting into question the stability of Windows 2000 was an internal Microsoft memo leaked to the media that identified 63,000 potential bugs in Windows 2000, an operating system that Microsoft said has undergone extensive testing by users. Analysts Gartenberg and Iams both confirmed the existence of Microsoft's memo. The 63,000 potential bugs were spotted by Prefix, an internal Microsoft package for testing software. Some of these could be actual bugs, others could be code that Prefix detects as possibly needing optimization, and others are spots where Prefix found developer comments noting functionality that should be improved in the next release, analysts said. "These are not situations you're going to encounter except in extreme cases," Iams said. Only users requiring maximum performance from Windows 2000 are likely to encounter the bugs, and those users will probably be waiting for future versions of Windows 2000 before deploying systems running the operating system. Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment on the bug reports. Despite the bug reports, new information is emerging that attests to Windows 2000's stability. In a recent survey of network administrators, 54 percent said Windows 2000 is an order of magnitude more stable than Windows 95 or Windows 98 -- Windows 2000 "hardly crashes or has not crashed at all" -- while 22 percent said it is much more reliable, crashing about half as much as Windows 9x. Compared with Windows NT 4 workstation, 26 percent of respondents said Windows 2000 hardly crashes or has not crashed at all; 25 percent said it crashes about half as much; and 24 percent said it is somewhat more reliable, crashing about 20 percent to 30 percent less. The survey was performed in conjunction with Giga Information Group. But the picture is not a gloomy one; GartnerGroup also said users can receive full payback from their investments from installing Windows 2000 in less than two years if they follow best practices. "Microsoft needs to come up with a fix rapidly," Gartenberg said. Copyright (C) 2000 CMP Media Inc. techweb.com