InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
August 30, 1999
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Applications Payback
Applications support will make or break Windows 2000. How difficult a job is it?
By all accounts, Microsoft feels confident that Windows 2000 will be ready for mass consumption by year's end. The question is, will the thousands of applications that now run on Windows be ready for Windows 2000?
For the most part, Microsoft says they will. "We won't ship Windows 2000 without compatibility of the most popular applications," says Deborah Willingham, VP of Microsoft business and enterprise division marketing. "We've set a pretty high bar."
Many users feel confident that independent software vendors will deliver on time for the new system. "We haven't heard anybody talk about what they have for Windows 2000," says Matthew Parsons, an IT coordinator at Pfizer Corp. in New York. "But we believe they'll provide what customers need."
Still, the question of applications portability and optimization for Windows 2000 is far from resolved. For both users and software vendors, Windows 2000 efforts are two-pronged: ironing out immediate compatibility issues with current applications while grappling with how best to exploit the new operating system going forward.
Windows 2000 promises to deliver long-awaited businesses benefits: better application performance, increased reliability, integrated security, simpler installation, and easier management. But companies anticipating immediate improvements may have to wait for the applications to catch up. That's because Microsoft made a trade-off in the development of Windows 2000, delivering a more reliable operating system at the expense of application compatibility.
The new operating system's architecture is very different from its predecessor, Windows NT. Among the significant changes are new directory and security services, as well as the integration of previously separate tools such as Microsoft Message Queue and Microsoft Transaction Server, which are now integral parts of the system.
Compatibility Caveat
Microsoft itself has identified four classes of compatibility problems that may require application revamping. In addition to set-up and install procedures, they include changes to the operating system architecture that conflict with utilities such as antivirus software and back-up systems; improvements in reliability that expose bugs and shortcuts in existing application code; and applications that were written to take advantage of Windows 98 or 95 features, such as virtual device drivers that aren't supported in Windows 2000. Microsoft has published a Compatibility Guide, online at support. microsoft.com/support/win 2000, to help users patch the most common problems.
Photo of Gashlin and Klubenspies by Giorgio Palmisano
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calm buzz of activity fills Microsoft's Windows 2000 testing labs in Redmond, Wash., where developers are tuning the source code of the company's next-generation enterprise operating system. Close to its next-to-last prerelease version, Windows 2000 is heading down the homestretch to general availability after almost five years in development.
Early testers have found a steep learning curve. "This product is not NT," says Lou Klubenspies, a technology analyst at Prudential Insurance Co. in Newark, N.J. "To us, it's a brand-new product." Prudential is part of Microsoft's Windows 2000 Joint Development Program, one of a handful of companies deploying early versions of Windows 2000 and providing feedback on the operating system.
A July report from analyst firm Summit Strategies says the feature in Windows 2000 that will impact the broadest range of applications is the operating system's new set-up and install procedures, called Application Installation Services. AIS is designed to eliminate the problem of new desktop applications overwriting system files that other applications require--a problem that until now posed a major headache for Windows developers. The caveat is that an application programmed to work around the glitch may not even load on Windows 2000, requiring a patch or rewrite of the application. "Some people will be angry" at such changes, says Iain McDonald, Windows 2000 project manager. "But in the end, they'll have a more reliable system."
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