It took 3.5 years and $1 billion, but Microsoft finally finished and shipped Windows 2000 Professional, Server, and Advanced Server to its manufacturing facilities. [A fourth version, the high-end Data Center, will be available in mid-year]. Microsoft will now start producing CD-ROMs and manuals, and computer system vendors will have the code in their hands for installation on their products. The launch date-the date that one can actually purchase the products remains February 17th.
Windows 2000 Professional is the successor to Windows 95/98. Preliminary testing by PC Labs, the testing unit of the trade publication PC Week, was impressive with regard to performance, but confirmed the earlier criticism that it consumes a big chunk of computer resources. Performance was poor on older Pentium machines and on those with less than 64 MB of memory.
PC Labs rated Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server far superior to Windows NT 4.0. It concluded that Windows 2000 Server is a "must-upgrade" for any NT 4.0 system, but it is also a "must-be-careful-upgrade" because it is difficult and time consuming to do. Extensive training and careful planning are advised. The cost, which begins at $999 for the base server software and five user licenses, is attractive, but implementation costs are likely to costs many thousands of dollars. Maintenance costs are likely to be better than for Windows NT 4.0 because once fully deployed it will provide a single view for managing an organization's network.
As with any major new product, the Contributing Editor recommends waiting several months until any bugs discovered by earlier adopters are fixed. Microsoft has already announced that it will continue to sell Windows 95/98 for another year and GartnerGroup, a market research firm that closely monitors Microsoft, predicts that Microsoft will continue to sell Windows NT 4.0 for at least two more years. Support for the products will go on even longer.
