Gates Introduces Windows 2000
In an effort to go where no software company has
gone before, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corporation, had actor Patrick Stewart of "Star Trek" fame host the introduction of Windows 2000.
Called "the future of computing" by Gates, Windows 2000 is said to
represent a significant industry-wide effort involving more than
1,000 "partners" and over $1 billion in engineering costs.
In support of what he called a new world transaction-processing
record, Gates said the new Windows 2000 Advanced Server and
the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 are so powerful that they can handle
the equivalent of all 1999 retail e-commerce transactions, in only 48
hours.
Addressing the reliability question that has been the butt of many
jokes directed toward Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system, Gates
said independent testing by Ziff-Davis Labs showed Windows
2000 was more reliable. According to the tests, Gates said, Windows 2000
never failed.
In comparison, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 had to be rebooted
every 5.2 days and Windows 95 had to be rebooted every 2.1 days,
making some media representatives wonder why their experiences with
rebooting Windows 95 were much more frequent.
To demonstrate the capabilities of Windows to handle masses of
transactions with no single point of failure, Gates showed 35 Dell
servers and 500 Dell clients handling over 1.6 billion hits per day
using CBS MarketWatch - equivalent to 10 times the typical traffic
generated by MarketWatch.
Countering another major contention made by supporters of other non-
Windows operating systems - that the cost of Window 2000 licenses
would make the operating system less attractive than others already
in use - Gates cited newly released customer studies from several
corporations. They indicate that businesses of all sizes project
they will receive significant value from Windows 2000, and be paid back
for their investment in less than 12 months.
In addressing how Windows 2000 will impact e-commerce, Gates
announced that more than 20,000 Web sites are already using the
Windows 2000 platform, including 25 of the most popular sites such as
Bigcharts.com, Plasticsnet.com, and Monster.com.
Microsoft says that the Windows 2000 family consists of four
products: Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows
2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.
More information about Microsoft is available at http://www.microsoft.com.