Ballmer Downplays W2K Scalability

Orlando, Fla. -- Faced with a barrage of questions about Windows 2000, Microsoft president Steve Ballmer on Wednesday backed away from the company's previous claims about the platform's ability to scale for enterprise applications.

Quizzed at the Gartner Group's Symposium/ITxpo99 conference about Windows' ability to scale, Ballmer said: " I think it's fair to say we got ahead of ourselves. And I think it's actually probably fair to say market perception lags reality." He added that "part of the scalability argument wasn't about scalability; it was about reliability and availability."

Microsoft had previously promised that Windows 2000 would be as scalable as its Unix rivals. In a series of glitzy Scalability Days during the past few years, company officials said the software would be able to host a multi-terabyte database applications and perform 1 billion transactions per day.

He also acknowledged it is unlikely that the long-delayed operating system will ship this year.

"We won't ship it until it's right. There's no need to ship at this point ... until it's absolutely, positively right," Ballmer said.

Sharing the stage with two GartnerGroup analysts and six corporate users, Ballmer was peppered by unusually hard questioning during the hour-long event.

Ballmer stated the operating system is getting good marks from the 70,000 beta testers using it. Microsoft has released the code to 20,000 customers, along with using it internally among 50,000 Microsoft employees.

He also outlined Microsoft's vision of evolving its products into an application service provider (ASP) scenario, "streaming" applications and upgrades to its customers over the Net, charging customers for applications under a monthly usage or per-user contract.

"Once you go out seven or 10 years, I think most software companies are going to have a very real-time interactive experience with their customers," Ballmer said. This, he added, would have "profound implications" on Microsoft's platform, products and software development approach.

Microsoft would probably offer this service under a hybrid model, with centralized control but local use of client PC resources for processing, he said. Pure-play ASPs run a customer's application remotely, and users merely access these applications and data using Web browsers.

But Microsoft's ASP aspirations were challenged by GartnerGroup vice president and senior research fellow Tom Austin, who noted that Microsoft's promises about NT scalability improvements haven't been fulfilled. "If you don't have that credibility you'll never get into the data center, and you'll never be able to make that transition to a service provider," Austin said.

Ballmer responded that Microsoft would have to do better about communicating its product plans to customers and "be perhaps a little more cautious" about its predicting the characteristics of future products.

In another pointed exchange, Ballmer was asked how he expected to move into enterprise engagements without a comprehensive IT services arm. Microsoft claims 7,000 in its professional services organization, up from essentially zero six years ago, and has on-site Microsoft employees for around 350 enterprise customers. He said Microsoft is not thinking of turning its consulting services into a profit center, a la IBM's Global Services unit, because this "skews" how a vendor approaches a customer's problems.

Although Windows 2000 will be delayed, Ballmer maintained the platform would be an important force, capable of challenging Unix. Within six months or maybe a year after Windows 2000 ships, he said it will be able to surpass Unix in terms of the utilities offered to run large data centers.

Predictably, Ballmer was asked whether Microsoft would follow in Linux's open source footsteps and provide Windows source code free to users.

"Open source means ... free. We have no plans on that," said Ballmer. He argued the open source model is decreasing in value to customers, as the number of distribution channels grows and the Linux operating system itself grows larger and more complex.

But Ballmer did throw a bone to those who have asked Microsoft to go open source. He hinted Microsoft was struggling with the question: "Are there parts of NT or parts of 2000 that we could publish to customers in such a way the customer's would be smarter in answering their own questions, finding problems?"