October 20, 1997

Multiuser NT Near Microsoft readies beta of NT 4.0 add-on; vendors to demo Windows Terminals By Stuart J. Johnston and Mary Hayes icrosoft's impending multiuser add-on to Windows NT 4.0, known as Hydra, is starting to live up to its multiheaded namesake. Microsoft will announce the beta version of Hydra early next month, sources close to the company say. Microsoft originally had planned to announce the test version at Comdex/ Fall '97 in Las Vegas in mid-November, but its marketers, fearing Hydra would get lost in the noise level, may instead announce it a week or two earlier, the sources say. Some vendors readying Hydra-compliant Windows Ter minals say they're still waiting for Microsoft to deliver specifications for its communications protocol, called T-Share. Boundless Technologies Inc. demonstrated an early version of a Windows Terminal, which will act as a client to Hydra, earlier this month at NetWorld+Interop '97 in Atlanta. More vendors, including Network Computing Devices and Wyse Technologies, are expected to show their Windows Terminals in Microsoft's booth at Comdex. Meanwhile, GraphOn Corp. last week said it's working on a product that will connect Windows Terminal users to Unix X-Windows applications via Hydra. The company hopes to ship it at the same time as Hydra. GraphOn says the product, code-named Go-Between, will aid the migration from Unix to NT. But not everyone agrees. "Go-Between seems to me to remove the user one more step from the application for no apparent reason," says Greg Blatnik, a VP at Zona Research in Redwood City, Calif. Microsoft's strategy for multiuser NT, as outlined last spring, includes letti ng users run their Windows applications on an NT server from a variety of client devices. The clients will range from Windows Terminals, which will use Windows CE 2.0 as the client operating system, to older machines such as 286-based PCs that are still in use at some companies. After a short beta test, Hydra will be available next year, initially as an add-on to NT Server 4.0, and later for NT 5.0, after that system ships. Pricing hasn't been announced. Back to News in Review Send Us Your Feedback Top of the Page

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