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February 21, 2000

Win2000: It's Only The Beginning
Microsoft Plans back-office software, middleware updates

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icrosoft marshaled 5,000 internal developers, $2 billion in engineering costs, and 750,000 beta testers to launch Windows 2000 last week. Chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates says it's just the beginning of the company's bid to wrest market share from Unix vendors.

This year, Microsoft plans to deliver back-office software, middleware, operating-system updates, and developer tools for deploying Windows applications across larger arrays of more-powerful servers. And it's embracing the Extensible Markup Language throughout those products, aiming for greater application integration within and between companies. "XML will be at the center of these new tools and applications," Gates says.

Even before the official release, more than 250 companies had already begun deploying Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows 2000 Advanced Server. This summer, Microsoft plans to release Windows 2000 DataCenter Server, with greater CPU and memory support for running high-end databases, Microsoft's Exchange messaging system, and Web servers. Senior VP Brian Valentine says high-end DataCenter Server configurations, including hardware, could cost up to $750,000. Microsoft will ship the first service pack, or bug fix, for Windows 2000 concurrent with the release of DataCenter Server.

General Motors Corp., which has begun upgrading 125,000 desktop PCs and thousands of servers to Windows 2000, is tracking the progress of DataCenter edition and some of the other forthcoming products, says CIO and group VP Ralph Szygenda. "I don't necessarily see Windows 2000 taking on the high end of Sun and HP," he says, "but it's going to start nibbling away."

Microsoft says its SQL Server 2000 database, running on Windows 2000, set a new record in the Transaction Processing Council's TPC-C benchmark for performance in a 12-node database cluster, clocking in at more than 227,000 transactions per minute. A second beta release of the product, scheduled for midyear delivery, is due in April.

Also due this year are updated versions of Commerce Server and SNA Server (renamed Host Integration Server 2000). A new version of Visual Studio is under development, as is middleware called BizTalk Server, which will use XML to exchange files between companies. Though GM looks to IBM, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems for leadership on XML, Szygenda says, Microsoft has embraced the technology without "being proprietary."

Exchange Server 2000 is scheduled to move into near-final "release candidate" phase this month, Microsoft confirmed. Another new offering, Application Center 2000 (formerly called AppCenter Server), will add component load balancing to Windows 2000 DataCenter Server and will ship shortly afterward.

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