Will Win2K Win?

Many of those who

attended the launch ceremony of Microsoft’s Windows 2000, touted as the

largest software release, were surprised. The event looked plain in front of the

glamour and glitz that accompanied the launch of the company’s earlier

operating systems (OS)–the Win 95 and Win 98. The pre-launch publicity and the

importance that the OS holds for the company’s future made the entire event

pale in comparison.

According to

analysts, it is Microsoft’s one chance to prove itself. The sweeeping internet

wave has raised doubts whether the company would be able to maintain its numero

uno position in the New Economy. Windows 2000 will decide whether the company

that has been enjoying almost an envious growth remains a prominent player in

the computing industry. In a recent Red Herring study, Microsoft’s name was

conspicuously missing from a list of stocks that investors should hold on to in

the net age. The list includes Cisco, eBay and Amazon. In another snub, Cisco

has replaced the Redmond Giant as the most valued company.

Market predictions

All eyes are now

set on Windows 2000. The new OS, which witnessed numerous delays before its

final launch in mid-February, a commercial OS geared toward business users. A

successor to the company’s NT 4.0 version, Win 2000 is not an upgrade of Win

98. It is a beefed up version of NT 4.0. The company wants its OS platform to

move into what it calls the internet ‘cloud’, just as the Windows is the

defacto OS today on virtually all PCs. Home users who want the new OS will have

to wait till sometime later this year, when the company will launch its Windows

Millennium Edition for the consumer segment.

Windows accounts

for 40% of Microsoft’s revenues. It notched up worldwide sales of $2 billion

of the total server market in 1999. But while the company’s growth rate in the

server OS market is still considerable, the growing presence of Linux in the

segment has put Microsoft’s share under strain. On the revenue front, Unix,

though showed a decline still commands 53% of the $5.7 billion server market. NT

followed with 32% share. Here Linux comes as a distant runner with a meager

share of 0.6%.With the internet

economy set to boom, the server OS market is just the right place for Microsoft

to be in. Most crucial will be the company’s ability to compete against the

likes of IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, whose proprietary Unix OSs

dominate enterprises and the internet. Linux too has become a popular OS for web

servers due to its free source code. Sun also recently scrapped the licensing

fees on its latest OS, Solaris 8. So has Microsoft got its recipe right with Win

2000? Only time will tell.Experts give a

50:50 chance to the new OS, if not less. The company’s original equipment

manufacturing partners like Compaq, Dell and HP are rallying around the giant by

offering PCs, servers and notebooks supporting the software. According to an IDC

survey, while only 5% of the small businesses said that they plan to upgrade to

the new OS by the end of the year. The percentage among corporations who planned

to upgrade to Win 2000 was slightly better–at 17%. Says Ashish Agrawal, a

Delhi-based reseller of Microsoft software, "Though there has been a surge

in response, the overall mood is cautious because of media reports on bugs and

the low awareness about product features among the users.

The Smart

Reseller report which lists 63,000 defects in the new OS attracted a lot of

attention. So did the Gartner Report saying that one out of four companies will

run into trouble over compatibility with the existing software. It has scored

high on security, a key feature that corporations demand of OSs that run their

mission-critical applications. It also claims improved scalability to handle

large surges in demand that are typical of website operations.

Similarly, while

according to experts, installing Win 2000 over Win 98 requires lot of patience

and high computing power, the new OS is assumed to be good for laptops. Its

power management features significantly reduce battery drain and help lessen the

long reboot time. The OS also has an encryption software that would render a

laptop useless if stolen.

Microsoft on its

part is not leaving any stone unturned to ensure the success of Win 2000. The

company has formed a $1 billion venture with Andersen Consulting to help deploy

internet services based on Windows 2000 technology. The move apparently aimed at

giving a boost to Windows 2000, also marks the software giant’s entry into

ecommerce services. Microsoft will pump $385 million into the new company, named

Avanade, while Andersen will provide sweat equity in the form of training and

consulting. Avanade will recruit around 5,000 consultants who will help

corporates set up web-based services and systems based on Windows 2000.

Mitchell Hill,

who has been with Andersen for 20 years, will head the new company to be based

at Seattle. The company will work directly not only with Andersen and Microsoft

but also with some original equipment manufacturers and technology providers.

But, finally the future of

Windows 2000 will depend on how well it is able to counter the Linux threat.

Especially, with giants like IBM and Dell supporting the Linux. Moreover, with

information appliances taking over the computing world, and analysts busy

writing obituaries for the ubiquitous PC–the technology that helped Microsoft

gain dizzy heights–it’s time it comes out with a product that can help it to

move over to the Internet economy.

Arthur Anderson