“Microsoft Corp. will issue a third and final release candidate
of Windows 2000 around the second week of November as the last test
version before it ships code to manufacturing before year’s
end.
RC3 will only be shipped to several hundred to a few thousand of
Microsoft’s most strategic beta customers rather than the roughly
750,000 who have been testing Windows 2000 for more than a year,
said Craig Beilinson, lead product manager of the operating
system.”
“Analyst Joe Clabby of the Aberdeen Group Inc. in
Boston said any extra steps Microsoft makes to ship stable code are
crucial. ‘Microsoft has a huge vested interest in making sure that
Windows 2000 does not fall on its face,’ he said. … Clabby said
he expects code to be released to manufacturing by the second
week in December and for it to be shipped to the first users during
the last week of the year.”