LAS VEGAS, Nov. 15, 1999 — In a press briefing at COMDEX/Fall ’99, Microsoft president Steve Ballmer and senior vice president Jim Allchin demonstrated some of Windows 2000’s key features, noting that Microsoft’s newest operating system works — both as a desktop and a server — to
“Internet-enable”
businesses and knowledge workers.
“The Internet as we know it today is not the Internet we’ll see three or four years from now,”
Ballmer said.
“No one Web site will do everything the customer will want done — Web sites will become customizable and programmable, so you can write programs that use other Web sites as components in delivering their value.”
“We’ve designed Windows 2000 to be a fundamental building block of Personal Web Services,”
he said.
Ballmer noted that Windows 2000 brings together the ease of use and device support of Windows 98 and the reliability, manageability and scalability of Windows NT to meet the needs of knowledge workers and businesses alike. In his remarks, he outlined how feedback from customers defined four key goals that drove Microsoft’s development of Windows 2000:
Reliability. Microsoft has designed Windows 2000 to configure and repair itself automatically, resulting in a more reliable operating system with higher system uptime. Thorough and intensive testing — as well as customer feedback — has enabled Microsoft to drastically reduce the number of system failures and reboots.
Manageability. Windows 2000 is manageable and easy to use, with advanced desktop management features that give businesses more choice in how they deploy and maintain their desktops. New features such as Active Directory, IntelliMirror, multi-language support and the Remote Installation Service make Windows 2000 the ideal choice for business desktops — for small businesses to large corporations alike.
Internet scale, security and services. Windows 2000 is built from the ground up to meet the Internet needs of any business — with rock-solid security to protect businesses and their customers. For the enterprise, Windows 2000 features technologies that allow businesses to give their customers componentized, reliable and easy-to-use Web sites. For knowledge workers, tighter browser integration and improved extensibility provide the ability to browse faster, better and smarter.
Support for new devices and mobile users. To meet the needs of today’s knowledge worker, Windows 2000 supports a wide array of new devices and technologies, including wireless networks, digital cameras, Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 (Firewire), infrared connectivity and smart cards. Windows 2000 also provides unprecedented support for laptop users, allowing mobile professionals to access critical information any time and anywhere.
Following Ballmer’s presentation, Microsoft senior vice president Jim Allchin provided a detailed overview of the company’s efforts to make Windows 2000 as reliable as possible. Through intensive testing and innovative software design, Allchin said that system failures and reboots have been significantly reduced, ensuring that knowledge workers can be more productive and businesses can better meet their customers’ needs.
Allchin noted how the industry is already lining up behind Windows 2000, with over 2,000 applications ready for the new operating system, over 600,000 beta users working with the product, and large enterprise customers such as Barnes and Noble and Infospace relying on Windows 2000 for their businesses.
