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To: John Koligman who wrote (78453)	2/17/2000 11:42:00 AM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Respond to of 97611

Microsoft chair to kick off Win 2000 By Mike Tarsala, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 11:30 AM ET Feb 17, 2000 NewsWatch SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- In his first big public appearance since stepping down weeks ago as chief executive of the world's most-valued company, Bill Gates will address a crowd in San Francisco to launch the company's anticipated Windows 2000 operating system. Gates, now Microsoft's (MSFT: news, msgs) chairman and chief software architect, is expected to stand alongside executives from IBM (IBM: news, msgs), Compaq (CPQ: news, msgs) and a host of other tech notables to tout Microsoft's new flagship product. Microsoft says the business software is more reliable and runs server computers faster than Windows 2000's predecessor, Windows NT. The company on Thursday plans to announce three versions of Windows 2000 running on laptops to midrange servers. Store prices for an upgrade from Windows NT are expected to start at about $129 a copy. In his speech Thursday, Gates is expected to talk about a souped-up fourth version of Windows 2000, expected this summer. In the address, Gates may give details on what customers can expect from the forthcoming software, called Windows 2000 Data Center Edition. The heftiest and perhaps the most awaited product in the Windows 2000 family, Data Center, is expected to be available starting in June, Microsoft executives say. Microsoft engineers are in the process of testing the new software with various brands and models of computers, according to executives. The company has yet to announce prices for Data Center. The Data Center Edition is expected to push Microsoft's software into the types of jobs that are done today by Unix operating software, which is considered in most cases to be more reliable than Windows 2000. Also, several companies, including Unisys (UIS: news, msgs) and IBM (IBM: news, msgs), are testing computers that can can run as many as 64 processors using the Windows 2000 Data Center Edition. "I think it will scale up to 64 processors, and there's a significant amount of work that needs to be done to make sure it scales beyond that," said Phil Hester, chief technology officer in IBM's personal-systems group. Still, working with even 32 processors offers a huge performance boost over what Microsoft's server software currently can handle, Hester said. And a boost to just 32 processors gives computer makers using the Windows 2000 Data Center Edition access to a big chunk of the midrange computing market. That's where companies such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard (HWP: news, msgs) see the biggest portion of their revenue in the Unix niche. Also, IBM is working on a technology it calls Cornhusker, which uses the Data Center Edition of Windows 2000 to group together as many as eight servers, each running as many as eight processors. Cornhusker is expected to shift computing jobs rapidly between all of the computers, providing a processing-speed boost. It's a feature that's been available on computers running Unix for several years. IBM's Hester said he doesn't expect the Windows 2000 release to take away sales of IBM's Unix computers, though. "Our customer base uses a mix of operating systems," Hester said. "They have something like a 390 mainframe running their mission-critical applications and large corporate databases, Unix machines at the hub of the Web world, and the mid-layers are deploying (Windows 2000)." Mike Tarsala is a reporter for CBS MarketWatch. Refer this article to a friend Printer friendly format Backflip this article to find it again For more breaking news, visit our Front Page. Also, search our news archives: Ticker Keywo