To: steve harris who wrote (117660 ) 11/13/2000 10:06:50 PM From: Barry Grossman Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 186894 Dell Predicts Strong Pentium 4, Windows 2000 Upgrade Cyclecrn.com By Steven Burke, CRN Las Vegas 7:20 PM EST Mon., Nov. 13, 2000 Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell predicts that the new Pentium 4 processor, together with the Windows 2000 operating system, will soon spark a significant desktop upgrade cycle for businesses. The combination of the new processor and operating system is a "pretty exciting reason for businesses to look at buying new computers," Dell said. Dell made the comments at a press conference after his Comdex keynote speech here. "People are underestimating the Pentium 4 transition," Dell said. "It is going to come very fast, especially from Dell. It's a massive amount of computing power. " Furthermore, Windows 2000 is moving out of the evaluation stage in corporations to high-volume implementations, he said. The critical difference between the Windows 2000 migration and the Windows 98 migration is that extensive testing was needed before corporations would implement the new operating system, Dell said. That testing phase is now complete, he said. In the most recent quarter, about 17 percent of Dell desktop systems and about 29 percent of Dell workstations shipped with Windows 2000. Dell itself now has 20,000 Windows 2000 systems operating internally, he said. Dell's first Pentium 4 system will be released "very soon," Dell said. "We're going to provide a pretty compelling reason for people to switch to the Pentium 4," he said. With the increasing use of broadband and DSL Web connections, the Internet bottleneck is shifting from the connection line to the computer, Dell said.