InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

It's part of the price businesses have to pay to get a more stable operating environment than has been available with Windows NT--a goal of paramount importance to many customers. According to InformationWeek Research's Windows 2000 survey, reliability and stability top the list of adoption factors (see chart below).

Indeed, as more businesses come to depend on Microsoft's products, the pressure is on to deliver ever-increasing levels of performance. In particular, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Datacenter Server will be under close scrutiny, as businesses judge if these packages can handle their most demanding workloads. Under Microsoft's licensing terms, Advanced Server will come with support for up to eight processors, two-node clustering, and load balancing; Datacenter Server, shipping 90 to 120 days after the other Windows 2000 packages, can be expanded to four-node clusters for a total of 32 CPUs.

That's a lot more power than businesses can get today with off-the-shelf Windows NT servers. Gates said in a speech last month that Microsoft has made "a huge step forward" in scalability with Windows 2000. "But perception actually lags reality here, so although there's more work to be done, we've also got to get the message out," he said.

However, Dennis Faggioni, CIO at Insight Enterprises, a $1 billion direct marketer of computer products in Tempe, Ariz., says he's taking a cautious approach. "I've got to know it's a little more stable before I look at it as a platform for mission-critical applications," he says. Both of Insight's critical systems--proprietary Web sales and back-end order fulfillment apps--run on Unix, and Faggioni isn't about to reconsider until Microsoft actually ships the operating system, releases test data, and assures delivery of subsequent service packs. In other words, the burden of proof is on Microsoft.

Company executives express confidence they'll get Windows 2000 right--some are already talking about what comes next. Allchin's team is mapping out subsequent operating system releases, including Millennium, a consumer-focused platform due next year, and Neptune, a follow-on to Millennium. For businesses, Microsoft is working on a 64-bit version of Windows 2000 to run on Intel's 64-bit Merced chip, as well as a subsequent release to that.

Ballmer is also looking ahead. He says businesses are less interested in issues of the recent past, such as total cost of ownership or even Y2K compliance. Instead, he says, Microsoft's highest priorities today are addressing the emerging market for hosted applications, developing "natural" user interfaces such as speech and handwriting recognition, and coming up with an answer to the open source-code movement.

All are impressive projects. But forward-looking product strategy isn't all that businesses are looking for from Microsoft now, as both the company and its customers prepare to tackle its upcoming products. And maybe Microsoft is waking up to that fact.

"I'm locked in on this arrogance thing," says Allchin. "I'd really like to change it." That attitude toward change--as exemplified by the changes the company is already making--could go a long way to making it happen.

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