IT Plots Aggressive Upgrades

Scalability. Reliability. Manageability. These are the cornerstones of Windows 2000, we are told by the Microsoft marketing machine. And they are the reasons it took so long to complete.

According to an InternetWeek survey, those techie buzzwords are translating into a simpler and more tangible concept in the field: Microsoft has finally produced an operating system that's ready for e-business.

With just two weeks to go before the release of Windows 2000, a substantial number of IT organizations are planning to use the new OS as a server platform for key e-business applications, according to the survey of 100 IT managers.

Nearly half said they plan to host their e-business applications on the new release, with Web serving, e-mail and customer-facing e-commerce systems at the top of the list.

What's more, early customers said that because the platform is more stable and secure than its predecessor--and more manageable, thanks largely to Active Directory--more organizations will be able to marry their internal business systems with Internet apps.

"If the Internet is where the world is headed, it's nice to have your own network work like the Internet," said Tony Burdick, a partner and IT manager at the law firm William Blair & Co. LLC.

Active Directory will eliminate the multiple domain structures inherent in Windows NT, allowing Burdick to tie his internal systems with his Internet infrastructure.

"By deploying Active Directory, you end up having the internal network act almost seamlessly like the Internet. It glues them both together," he said.

Burdick said the beta versions of Windows 2000 he tested are more stable than NT, and he plans to roll out the new OS to the firm's global offices in the third quarter. Software distribution, improved security and simplified end-user interfaces to data are among the initial reasons Burdick wants to upgrade as soon as possible.

Lawn mower manufacturer Snapper Inc. plans to use Windows 2000 to host its new e-commerce site. The company is impressed with the improved administration tools and security, both of which are unavailable in either the previous Windows release or Novell NetWare, which handles some of Snapper's internal applications.

"I'm trying to lower total cost of ownership," said Howard Jones, CIO of Snapper. "I might not have to add bodies. I might even be able to remove bodies."

Like many companies moving to Windows 2000, Snapper is particularly interested in Active Directory, Microsoft's first enterprise directory product. With older directories, network administrators must record each user's rights several times--once for the network itself, and once for each application that the employee uses. With Active Directory, administrators can record the user's rights and information once and take advantage of it across applications.

Indeed, 54 percent of those who said they will use Windows 2000 for their key e-business applications said Active Directory will be their main network directory.

Active Directory was the selling point for Windows 2000 itself in some cases. "Our biggest interest is in Active Directory," said Richard Shope, manager of PC technology and planning at Bank of America's Global Corporate Investment Banking (GCIB) unit.

Having grown through multiple acquisitions, GCIB, with 16,000 employees and 300 NT servers, has a complex domain setup to track users, devices and applications. "We're hoping Windows 2000 will be a way to flatten that and make it easier maintain," Shope said. Still, Bank of America has no plans to move its e-commerce applications off Sun Solaris, Shope said.

Tom Mulvey, an NT administrator for American Benefit Plan Administrators, which administers health funds and pensions for unions, said he looks forward to using Active Directory as a means for allowing users to more easily control access to files, printing, e-mail and other data. "Through Active Directory, the user community will find it easier to get to resources and shared files," Mulvey said.

Others are anxious to move, but plan to do so slowly to avoid falling victim to early bugs.

"We're going to wait until the bugs fly off Windows 2000 before we deploy it," said Reed Wilson, an IS manager at Petro Diamond Inc., which plans to deploy Windows 2000 in the third quarter.

Wilson will replace both Windows NT and SCO Open Server with Windows 2000. The company runs NT in its Irvine, Calif., headquarters, and Open Server in a remote location. "I'm trying to simplify, get all my servers on the same operating system, and have better communication between the two sites," Wilson said. The company will migrate from Unix to Windows, rather than vice-versa, because Windows skills are more common, he noted.

No one reason alone will compel IT managers to upgrade, said Gartner Group analyst Michael Gartenberg. While he expects all customers using NT for e-business apps to move up, the timing of the upgrade will depend on what they're looking to get out of the operating system.

In the survey, Web serving topped the list as the most popular application for Windows 2000, named by 89 percent of respondents. IT managers also listed e-mail (79 percent), business-to-business e-commerce (68 percent), transaction processing (57 percent), data mining (53 percent) and line-of-business applications such as insurance procurement, mortgage approval and order fulfillment (51 percent).

About half named consumer e-commerce (47 percent). They also listed enterprise resource planning (43 percent) and supply chain management (34 percent).

Of those not migrating, 73 percent said they are satisfied with their current platform. "We have a stable environment right now," said Windows NT customer Dan Briscoe, e-commerce manager for Birmingham Steel Co., which converts scrap metal to steel.

Of those reluctant to make the move, 38 percent cited concerns about stability. "We've affectionately referred to it as 'bugasaurus rex,' " said David Pensak, a senior research fellow at materials and energy giant E.I. du Pont de Nemours Inc. "I'm sure there will be some people who deploy it willingly, and we'll let them step on the land mines. We'll come in and install it after one or two service packs come out."

Twenty-four percent are waiting because they are dissatisfied with Microsoft's customer support. "I have yet to get a satisfactory tech support call from Microsoft. The answer you get from Microsoft is to reload the operating system and reformat the drive," said John Welch, an Apple Macintosh and PC administrator for AER Inc., an atmospheric research company.

Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst at International Data Corp., said IT managers looking to contain the potential harm of installing Windows 2000 might choose to deploy it first on the desktop or a workgroup server. Users who want to see significant cost reductions due to the manageability features of Windows 2000 should consider upgrading immediately, said Gartner Group's Gartenberg.

Said Kusnetzky: "I have a suspicion that most people will bring Windows 2000 into their world slowly, because there are a number of new pieces of software, and the ramifications of those new pieces will take time to absorb. It is likely to be a very successful product, but it is likely to be slow."

Ellis Booker and Jeffrey Schwartz contributed to this story.