Industry adopts 'wait and see' attitude to Windows 2000

Windows 2000 (Win2000) is officially launched today, but Microsoft still has many issues to resolve before its latest operating system enjoys widespread adoption.

Despite four years and $1bn being pumped into the development of Win2000 - billed as an upgrade to NT for the corporate sector - end users and beta testers are not convinced it is ready for market.

Frank Coyle, IT director at John Menzies Distribution, told Silicon.com: "I would definitely wait until Windows 2000 has proven itself, and as far as I'm concerned, with the history of Microsoft products, I think we're talking about eighteen month's time. To be honest, unless I require any of the facilities specifically within Windows 2000, I would wait and let others take on the early bugs."

Microsoft has admitted there are around 63,000 defects in Win2000, of which up to 20,000 may be bugs, but it claims this is normal for a product of this magnitude.

However, the bugs are only the tip of the iceberg, according to Coyle, who said he has serious concerns that Win2000 will force users to run Microsoft software on their servers as well as their PCs.

As his company is currently running on Sun Microsystems's Solaris, Coyle argued: "I really would not wish to be forced down a Microsoft route and if it looked as if that was going to happen I would seriously consider not going to Windows 2000 at all."

The European Union has already launched an investigation into anti-competitive concerns allegedly registered by Sun Microsystems and Novell.