To: JC Jaros who wrote (47818 ) 7/15/2000 10:50:52 PM From: Mike Van Winkle Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 74651 JC re: if MSFT comes in short of expectation on Tuesday (sqarely inside their new product cycle)... It seems to me that the second half is the time frame to watch. Here is a part of an article that looked promising. regards, Mikewww2.marketwatch.com {2A0116EC-C153-43FA-9788-29B06B263C1C} Dell's Deployment of Windows 2000 Professional is Ahead of Schedule and Below Cost Projections; Company Says Experience Bodes Well for Industry Transition THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2000 5:15:00 PM EST > > Joe Marengi, senior vice president of Dell's Relationship Group with responsibility for the company's largest corporate customers, said Dell's transition experience bodes well for businesses and institutions planning to upgrade to Windows 2000. Dell expects the industry transition to accelerate during the second half of this year. In order to facilitate the deployment of Windows 2000 Professional, the company developed an automated process that included Web-based tools enabling employees to automatically pre-test their PC configurations for hardware and applications compatibility with the new operating system. These processes helped Dell achieve its initial deployment objectives two weeks ahead of its own aggressive schedule with minimal inconvenience and installation times that were less than half the company's original estimates. The average transition cost per system was less than half Dell's original internal forecast. "Our own experience," said Marengi, "demonstrates that deployment of Windows 2000 Professional in a complex environment can be achieved quickly and cost-effectively, delivering improved reliability and performance across the entire enterprise. The tremendous benefits associated with Windows 2000 Professional provide a powerful incentive for customers to make this transition as quickly as possible." Dell, a pioneer in Web-enabled solutions that help customers evolve their businesses to take advantage of Internet efficiencies, upgraded its www.dell.com Web site to Windows 2000 earlier this year. The site, one of the world's largest online commercial operations with sales of nearly $40 million per day, achieved a 22 percent performance increase with Windows 2000. > > "Dell's deployment of Windows 2000 Professional demonstrates that large enterprises and institutions can achieve the reliability, stability and performance benefits of Windows 2000 Professional quickly and economically," said John Frederiksen, general manager, PC Experience, Microsoft Corp. "We believe Dell's experience will be representative as customers continue the upgrade process this year."