Businesses warned to hold off investment in new technology

Businesses should hold off investing in any of the upcoming enterprise operating systems until the technologies have had a chance to prove themselves, according to research house Frost & Sullivan.

The researchers warned that over the next 18 months, corporates will see the release of Windows 2000 and 64-bit operating systems from the major Unix vendors, Hewlett Packard (HP), IBM, SCO and Sun. The launches will result in a "glut of contradictory performance statistics and optimistic claims of simple upgradeability", Frost & Sullivan's report claims.

However, the analyst outfit forecasts a significant jump in revenues for the European Windows NT market - from $23bn this year to nearly $89bn in 2005 - and credits Microsoft's marketing machine for the likely continued success of NT. It also noted that NT's relatively low cost and its easy-to-use graphical interface appealed to users, and that it is difficult to estimate what impact Linux will have on NT's market share.