Why You Might Decide To Run Away From W2K

Windows 2000 is a welcome relief from the frustrations and instabilities of Windows 98 and NT. Its directory service adds features IT managers have wanted for a long time. Despite the good news, the new OS carries a hefty price: It effectively requires an across-the-board commitment to Microsoft. That price may be more than you're willing to pay.

The part of W2K that's extracting the price is Active Directory. Microsoft has integrated its directory service so tightly into the operating system that they are basically one entity. As you'll see from Alan Zeichick's review on Page 29, there are a significant number of Windows features, most of them management-related, that can't be used without Active Directory.

If you're an all-Microsoft shop, the requirement to use Active Directory may not be so bad. In this release, it is reasonably useful. The problem lies in the fact that Active Directory is very Windows-centric. If you have a mixed network of NetWare and Unix servers in addition to your Windows platforms, it's very likely that you cannot manage your network if you intend to make Active Directory your sole directory service.

While it's certain that Novell will deliver a version of NDS for Windows 2000, it's not at all likely that NDS will satisfy the requirements of the Windows management utilities that require Active Directory. The only other choice could be to migrate all your servers to Windows to be able to use many Active Directory features.

The future doesn't look particularly bright, either.

Microsoft has made it clear that new applications will be similarly tied to Active Directory and may, in fact, require it to be fully functional. You could find yourself buying applications and then not being able to use important features unless you convert to AD from whatever directory you're currently using. Again, perhaps not so bad if you run an all-Windows enterprise.

But suppose, like most users, you don't. You might be forced to change the way you do business or live with an environment that's missing significant features and capabilities. A hefty price, indeed.

While there's no question that Windows 2000 is a badly needed improvement over Microsoft's earlier operating systems, the real price of moving is selling your corporate soul to Microsoft. To make W2K a fully useful environment, you must embrace it at the exclusion of all else. This effectively locks out other vendors of application and operating system software by creating a monolithic force that will be difficult or impossible to crack.

This is very similar to the practices that the Department of Justice complained about when it filed its antitrust suit against Microsoft. So ask yourself when considering a move to Windows 2000 and Active Directory: Do you really want to make your commitment to Microsoft so complete that you effectively exclude all non-Microsoft software? If all you want is what Microsoft can provide, perhaps that's acceptable. But for heterogeneous enterprises in which limits on choice mean limits on performance and capability, the best choice is to hold W2K at arm's length, or even run in the other direction.

Wayne Rash is managing editor/technology at InternetWeek. He can be reached at wrash@mindspring.com and wrash@cmp.com.