InformationWeek

February 8, 1999

Windows 2000: Three-Part Harmony

By Stuart J. Johnston

icrosoft has delayed the third and final beta of Windows 2000 until late April, putting commercial shipment of its make-or-break enterprise operating system even further behind schedule. Current estimates now have Windows 2000 coming out late in the third quarter or in the fourth quarter. Some industry observers predict that it won't ship until at least the first quarter of 2000.

Microsoft officials say they think they can ship the first three editions of Windows 2000 before year's end--but that they won't ship anything until beta testers say the code is stable and bug-free. That's a hefty requirement--Windows 2000 contains as many as 35 million lines of code, according to some estimates. Microsoft plans to send the third beta to 200,000 or more testers. A third beta is rare for a Microsoft system, but Windows 2000 is such an extensive upgrade from earlier versions of NT that a third beta could need up to nine months to achieve acceptable reliability.

Windows 2000 will initially be released in three editions. The desktop version, formerly named Windows NT Workstation, is now dubbed Windows 2000 Professional. The basic server edition, which will run on one or two processors, will be named Windows 2000 Server, while an enhanced edition that until now was called NT Server Enterprise Edition will be called Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Advanced Server will run on up to only four processors instead of the eight that Enterprise Edition supports. Finally, 60 to 90 days after shipment of the other editions, Microsoft plans to ship a high-end edition called Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, which will run on machines with up to 16 processors.