InformationWeek

February 8, 1999

Print this story

We Want Windows

continued...page 2 of 3

Related links:

Extra research on Windows 2000

Related links from our sister publications:

Windows Windows 2000

Planet IT Windows 2000: Bringing Management Into The OS

The 355-bed Southern Californiahospital system's revenue is growing by 15% to 20% per year. Those numbers are unprecedented for the health-care company--and so are the stresses they put on the IT support staff and infrastructure. "Last year I had no NT servers, and 10 months later I have 52," says Shehata, who hopes to begin deploying 2,000 Intel desktops in October. Although about 80% of them will run NT Workstation 4.0, the machines will be Windows 2000-ready.

Another Windows 2000 capability, Zero Administration Windows, is attracting the interest of emerging enterprises because it promises to greatly reduce the work required to administer PCs. For instance, the system's IntelliMirror technology keeps a server copy of everything that's stored on the user's machine. Then, when the user needs to use a different client, that's also running Windows 2000, the act of logging onto the network will cause the server to turn that PC into a copy of the user's own machine--with access to all the configuration information, files, and look and behavior of the user's normal desktop. If the user's machine crashes, a technician can replace it with a new one with a blank hard disk, simply by plugging it into the network. Another component of Zero Administration will provide for automated distribution, installation, and configuration of new applications, as well as software updates from an administrator's central console.

bar chart

Those are compelling reasons to switch to Windows 2000, says SkyMall's Dastrup, noting that his company's rapidly growing catalog and E-commerce sales are putting pressure on the IT staff to keep up. For example, the company can use IntelliMirror and other Zero Administration technologies to automatically and quickly configure a new PC for a customer-service or order-entry operator. That will cut down on the time it takes to set up new customer-service workstations--and take some weight off the support staff, who currently must build those configurations one at a time.

Realistic Expectations
Still, fast-growing companies should be realistic about what Windows 2000 will--and won't--do for them, says Gartner Group analyst Michael Gartenberg. "You're not going to see the same benefits as you did when you went to Windows 95 from Windows 3.1 because the infrastructure investment is large," he says. One of those investments is hardware. Windows 2000 Professional, the desktop version formerly called Windows NT Workstation, requires at least a 300-MHz Pentium II processor and 64 Mbytes of RAM; Gartner Group recommends a minimum of 128 Mbytes of RAM. Such a machine, with a monitor, sells for $1,500 to $2,000.

In addition, says Gartenberg, the promised gains in ease of management and performance are incremental, especially on the desktop. Organizations with a lot of PCs will tend to achieve greater benefits in total cost of ownership than smaller ones, even if the latter are growing rapidly. Gartenberg also says many of Windows 2000's features are already achievable with NT 4.0 and tools from third-party vendors.

Rob Enderle, an analyst at Giga Information Group, says the cost of hardware to run Windows 2000 is likely to be daunting to cash-strapped growing companies. The move to Windows 2000 on the desktop will require many companies to replace most of their existing PCs, according to the new survey. Although many companies are buying at least the minimum hardware configuration already, only about 30% of machines at businesses of all sizes today meet the requirements, and by the third quarter, only 51% of the installed base of desktop PCs will be capable of running Windows 2000, according to the survey. (see chart, below). "Windows 2000 requires higher-priced hardware, and companies that are growing rapidly typically want more lower-priced hardware because they're hiring people quickly," says Enderle.

bar chart

In The Mix
For that reason, almost half of all IT departments expect to continue to run mixed-mode shops, in which different versions of several operating systems will be in use. About one-third of all companies polled in the latest InformationWeek Research survey say the requirement for additional hardware investment may cause them to delay deploying Windows 2000 on the desktop.

Polaris Service Inc. will run Windows 2000 in a mixed-mode environment for the foreseeable future. The 200-employee, privately held Unix and Windows NT support organization, which has annual revenue of about $50 million and is growing by about 40% per year, sees a lot to recommend Windows 2000 in the future--but it also sees signs of trouble in the current beta.

For instance, the part of Active Directory that's supposed to enable NT 4.0 machines to integrate smoothly with Windows 2000 machines doesn't yet function as promised in the beta releases, says Stephen Blanchard, manager of IT at the Marlboro, Mass., firm.

Some companies are already ahead of the curve. Last summer, Gadzooks Inc., a fast-growing 320-store retail chain headquartered in Carrollton, Texas, that posted revenue of about $220 million last year, installed all new desktop PCs that meet the minimum Windows 2000 hardware specs--though the move was primarily to make sure the company is year 2000 compliant. "We're in good shape," says VP of IS David Gruehn.

But even then, Gartenberg suggests that users not be too hasty. "Our advice is, 'Don't be the first one on the block to get to Windows 2000,'" he says. "It's something you'll want to do on the server first and on the clients later."

Such warnings do have some emerging enterprises moving more cautiously. Privately held New Watch Co. in Houston, for instance, will likely switch quickly, but only if Microsoft delivers on its promise of a bug-free release, says James Whitcomb, president and CEO of the company, which sells watches in stores and over the Web. New Watch's sales are growing 25% per month, and Whitcomb expects to spend 20% of revenue on IT investments this year.

"Assuming that Windows 2000 checks out, we'll adopt it very quickly [on both desktops and servers]," he says. "But if it's not reliable, we won't go past the first step." High on his list of must-have features: improved desktop manageability and performance.