REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 26, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Compaq Computer Corp., SWX Swiss Exchange and PeopleSoft Inc. are deploying Windows® 2000 in their demanding production environments and experiencing reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) through the advanced management features and deployment tools in the forthcoming operating system. In addition, analyst firm NerveWire Inc. has concluded that customers will experience significant time and cost savings from the increased manageability of Microsoft® Windows 2000. Specifically, customers deploying and configuring Windows 2000 Professional can expect an average cost savings of $279 per client vs. the Windows NT® 4.0 Workstation, Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating system.
“Reducing total cost of ownership is an ongoing challenge for our customers and has been one of the design goals of Windows 2000 from the outset,”
said Deborah Willingham, vice president of Windows marketing at Microsoft Corp.
“With the new management tools, features and services offered by Windows 2000, Microsoft helps customers lower TCO. It’s wonderful to see real-world evidence of the significant savings prior to general availability of the product.”
Windows 2000 is a more manageable operating system that provides centralized, policy-based management, greater interoperability and faster deployment options that lower the total cost of ownership for organizations of all sizes. Windows 2000 allows customers to configure, secure and guarantee services across their networks through its integrated management infrastructure, which includes the Active Directory TM service, IntelliMirror TM management technologies, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Microsoft Management Console (MMC), Windows Scripting Host (WSH) and the Component Object Model (COM).
“Numerous factors will impact the cost of a migration to Windows 2000,”
said Kurt Schlegal, senior research analyst at The META Group Inc.
“Organizations must start planning now by inventorying their PC base, developing a project migration plan and creating Windows 2000-based builds to optimize those costs and ensure a smooth transition.”
Desktop Management
Windows 2000 Professional gives desktop managers more control over individual desktops in their organization. With IntelliMirror, based on the Active Directory service, administrators can easily apply policies to user data, desktop settings and software.
“We are always looking for ways to increase user efficiency and reduce the burden on our IT department, which manages more than 60,000 desktops and laptops throughout the company,”
said Brent Harman, IT manager for Compaq.
“Windows 2000 Professional allows us to control and manage many functions at the desktop in real time, which reduces our overall infrastructure and management costs. Windows 2000 is rock-solid – we have already deployed it on more than 15,000 machines internally and plan to have our entire organization running on the forthcoming operating system within a year.”
Centralized Management
Windows 2000 Server is designed to provide powerful management services through infrastructure enhancements such as Active Directory and WMI. Windows 2000 Server delivers powerful, comprehensive management services to better manage servers, networks and Windows-based desktops, including Terminal Services, WSH and MMC.
“In the securities market, IT systems are the lifeblood. A company that can’t provide a highly scalable and reliable environment can quickly lose customers and its competitive edge,”
said Rico Piantoni, trading system development manager, SWX Swiss Exchange.
“We have found that Windows 2000, Active Directory and COM+ provide the ideal combination of technology on which to build our next trading system because the platform offers exceptional performance, reliability, flexibility and business value.”
Easier to Deploy
Whether upgrading from previous versions of Windows or installing the operating system on new machines, Windows 2000 provides deployment tools to make the process more efficient, reducing costs. The System Preparation tool allows customers to utilize imaging techniques to easily roll out Windows 2000 throughout their organization. With Remote Operating System Installation, desktop managers can centrally boot and install a remote machine using the ROM on a network interface card.
“With Windows 2000 deployment tools such as the System Preparation tool and Remote Operating System Installation, we were able to rapidly and easily deploy the operating system on more than 1,000 Toshiba laptops and desktops worldwide. The improved manageability of these newly deployed Windows 2000-based machines is helping us reach our goals of driving down IT administration costs,”
said David Thompson, chief information officer at PeopleSoft.
“Today, we can easily manage users’ systems, wherever they are in the world, using Windows 2000 management tools. And our users benefit by having 24×7 access to their information, whether they are on the network or on the road.”
NerveWire’s Findings
NerveWire Inc. ( http://www.nervewire.com/ ), a business-to-business Internet professional services firm that rapidly deploys iterative digital strategy and e-business technology solutions to help Global 2000 organizations and Internet startups win in the third wave of the Internet, conducted a customer study in January 2000 on the management benefits of the Windows 2000 platform. The study concluded that customers deploying and configuring Windows 2000 Professional can expect an average cost savings of $279 per client vs. Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows 95 and Windows 98. The study also found that customers should expect to experience significant time savings due to the increased manageability of Windows 2000. For example, repairing a desktop system took an average of 1.25 hours less than with Windows NT 4.0, and configuring Windows 2000 Server took an average of 2.75 hours less per server. These cost savings measure only actual time and money saved by using the management features of the Windows 2000 platform; they do not account for additional significant benefits such as increased reliability and scalability and the reduced need for direct support from help desk staff.
Availability
General availability of Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server begins on Feb. 17, 2000. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is expected to be available approximately 90 to 120 days later.
About Windows 2000 and Microsoft
Windows 2000 is an ideal platform for the next generation of business computing and addresses the full range of customers’ computing needs, from laptops and desktops to high-end, clustered servers. The operating system helps organizations Internet-enable their business with a reliable, manageable infrastructure that is optimized for existing and emerging hardware. More information about Windows 2000 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/ .
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
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