“NOW THAT Windows 2000 is out of the blocks, corporations must
wait while the rest of the Wintel software world — and Microsoft
itself — catches up by releasing products that complement the
software giant’s “bet the farm” operating system.
Only about 30 applications currently can leverage all of
Windows 2000’s features — particularly Active Directory (AD) —
and Microsoft’s own Windows 2000-centric BackOffice family is
months away from delivery. In fact, Oracle is expected to
deliver Oracle8i, Release 2, this March, and IBM intends to ship
DB2 for Windows 2000 within the same time frame — a full three
months ahead of Microsoft’s plans to deliver SQL Server 2000.
Meanwhile, Microsoft plans to release service packs for Windows
2000 on a regular six-month basis, giving IT managers plenty of
time to plan for them… These service packs, in a policy that
marks a shift from NT, will no longer include new features, and
administrators will be able to ‘slipstream’ them into their
systems. The regular schedule for service packs may actually serve
as an incentive for many potential users to delay upgrading to
Windows 2000, particularly if corporations are heeding the advice
of research companies such as the Gartner Group…”