Microsoft
2000
Microsoft is pumping up its considerable marketing muscle to pressure you into an important, costly and risky decision. To buy or not to buy Windows 2000. I recommend against any move for the forseeable future, if ever. Before you lose time, money and productivity on a product that may or may not be right for your home or business, do the right thing, let due process take its course. So far: * The new extended Windows family includes Windows 2000, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced server. That group doesn't include Windows Millennium (now called Windows Me), Windows CE and the Win2000 successors Whistler and Blackcomb. So far then, Windows 2000 is not the latest. * Microsoft has a poor track record on new software, going back to DOS days, when the principle of make the user pay for a product, pay to have its bugs exposed and pay for the `upgrade' that is meant to fix the bugs, but only reveals new one. The same company that has delayed Windows 2000 for two years, stripped numerous features out of the original program, and is now releasing it with more than 63,000 known bugs. * The US based GartnerGroup warned that one out of every four companies deploying large-scale Windows 2000 upgrades will run into trouble. * Despite the ubiquitous general public's impression that MS's Windows has a `defacto' relationship with PCs, Windows 2000 isn't your only option. Maybe you should switch to Linux or stay with Win98. On the other hand, and taking any magazine's comments with a bucket of kickback salt, PC Magazine's PC Labs recently reviewed Windows 2000 and called it a great improvement. ZDNet also reckons for mobile users Windows 2000 may make a lot of sense. Every opinion is biased, that's why its called opinion. My bias is to stick with older, working, versions of MS Windows, if you have them, until you can wean yourself away from Microsoft to join the constellation of companies that support the Linux packages that are coming out in droves. .
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