But users and analysts say they will remain skeptical until Microsoft proves Windows 2000 is significantly more stable than Windows NT 4.0, which even Microsoft execs admit is less reliable than earlier versions.

"My biggest concern would be reliability of a single machine," says Ric Liang, network architect at Westcoast Energy Inc., a natural-gas transmission company in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company depends heavily on NT servers but, because of stability problems, tends to deploy each service or application on its own machine. Liang won't consider server consolidation until Datacenter Server has been thoroughly tested and has received at least one service pack. "If our file-and-print server dies, we can just reboot it. If the whole thing died, we'd really be in trouble," he says.

Even users eagerly awaiting Datacenter Server demand that it be rock- solid. "Would I be comfortable going from 62 NT servers today down to 50? You bet-as long as the reliability is there," says Ash Shehata, IS director for Antelope Valley Healthcare Systems in Lancaster, Calif.