Microsoft has told its largest customers and service providers that list pricing for Windows 2000 Server will range from $300 to $700, depending on the number of client licenses and other features; Windows 2000 Advanced Server will retail for around $3,000; and Windows 2000 DataCenter Server will run about $10,000. A popular upgrade version of Windows NT Server 4 now carries a list price of $329; Windows NT 4 Enterprise Edition retails for $3,199. Microsoft officials would not comment on pricing.

By upgrading to Win2000, IT departments can gain more control over their networks, improve stability of the operating system, and, with Advanced Server and DataCenter Server, distribute network traffic across clusters of systems. DataCenter will support up to 32 processors in one server, address more than 32 Gbytes of memory, and provide for four-node clustering.

While these prices don't reflect the deep discounts afforded customers who buy in volume or through licensing programs, they suggest Microsoft intends to hold pricing steady for Windows 2000, expected to ship early next year. And DataCenter Server, scheduled for release three to four months later, won't be sold on price, say people familiar with the company's plans. "Microsoft is floating pricing under the pretext that the cost of the software is not where the value comes from in DataCenter Server," says an executive at a large integrator.

Microsoft president Steve Ballmer has argued that total cost of ownership is receding in importance as customers look to the company for more-scalable, more-reliable systems that can run key enterprise applications. In a recent InformationWeek Research survey of 225 IT managers, reliability, ease of administration, and performance topped criteria lists for the operating system (Aug. 30, 1999).

"I'm not horrendously put off by price," says Jim Prevo, VP and CIO at Green Mountain Coffee Inc., a $56 million coffee distributor in Waterbury, Vt. More important, he says, is that "DataCenter will probably be available from a select few vendors in very bounded configurations, so it's extremely stable."

An IS manager at a multibillion-dollar company says adequate technical support will help determine whether he buys the operating system. "We tend to have to reboot an NT server every 30 days," he says. "If they want to play in that space, they've got to support that."