InformationWeek

January 5, 1998

Win98 To Ship

Windows 95 upgrade is almost here, while NT 5.0 waits in the wings

Windows icrosoft will ship its first major upgrade to Windows 95 during the first half of 1998. Windows 98 is expected to let Windows continue holding sway as Microsoft's best-selling desktop system.

Windows 98 will provide all the features that have been added to Windows 95 since it first shipped. Included will be the 32-bit version of the file system. Win98 also will support the Universal Serial Bus peripheral interface standard that may finally fulfill the promise of plug-and-play computing.

The most visible feature of Win98 will be its Active Desktop, which will let users have informat ion providers push Web content directly to their desktops. Win98 will also combine the Web-browsing features of Internet Explorer 4.0 with Windows Explorer so that users will be able to view information and files on their local hard disk in the same way they surf the Web.

Windows NT 5.0 will also feature the Active Desktop. At least that's Microsoft's plan; the U.S. Department of Justice and the judge overseeing the 1995 consent decree may force changes. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has set Jan. 13 as the next hearing date. For now, his temporary injunction could force Microsoft to delay delivery of Windows 98 in order to create a second version that doesn't include Active Desktop.

It's unclear how many corporate customers will be willing to move to Windows 98. Microsoft has oriented the operating system toward consumers, but has tried to convince corporate customers to go with Windows NT Workstation. But NT Workstation will not support plug-and-play and advanced power management for notebook computers u ntil Windows NT 5.0 ships. This has discouraged many companies from adopting NT Workstation.

No matter what, IT professionals will be talking about NT 5.0. Though Microsoft has promised the upgrade this year, company executives said recently they are committed only to shipping the second beta test of NT 5.0 during the first half of the year.

Even if the system does arrive on time, most users will do more testing than deploying. "Our normal policy is to wait about a year after a major upgrade ships and let other people find out what's wrong," says Fred Morsheimer, VP of MIS and CIO at Trader Joe's Co., a food retailer in Pasadena, Calif.

NT 5.0 will offer a new security system and Active Directory, a global directory that may finally give customers the tools to make NT an industrial-strength enterprise system. It also will deliver key components of Microsoft's Zero Administration Windows, which will enable central management of PCs and cut total ownership costs by as much as 50%, says Jim Allchin, Micr osoft's senior VP of personal and business systems.

This may well be the year Microsoft gets companies to trust NT in their enterprises. But it won't be the year Microsoft dominates the enterprise. "There's no question that NT's going to be the backbone of our future," says Trader Joe's Morsheimer, "but it will take us three years to cut over completely."

Back to Hot In '98