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FYI...
Microsoft plans new version of Windows 98
By Sharon Gaudin
LOS ANGELES -- Windows 98 won't be the last desktop operating system of its
type to come out of Microsoft Corp., according to the company's president,
Steve Ballmer.
Contrary to about a year's worth of statements about its future plans,
Microsoft will ship an upgraded version of Windows 98 next year after all,
Ballmer said in his keynote address to thousands of hardware vendors and
analysts at the company's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference
(WinHEC) here. The upgrade will be based on the Windows 9x kernel and will
be focused on the consumer but available to corporate buyers as well.
Microsoft has long said that Windows 98 would be the last version with that
code base because the company would be focusing its engineering and
marketing attention on Windows NT and the NT kernel. Microsoft's upcoming
Windows 2000 operating system, which is based on the NT kernel, was supposed
to serve as the platform for the enterprise server, the corporate desktop
and the consumer desktop.
That notion is at least partly out the window now.
``We have said that Windows 2000 will be the new desktop and that we were
focusing on NT,'' Ballmer said. ``It had been our target to get there in
2000. The right approach is to get a consumer version of Windows 98 out next
year.''
Ballmer said the upgraded operating system will be designed to better handle
digital media, support Universal Plug and Play and `work out of the box.'
He said the Windows 2000 code base will permeate the Windows platform ``post
year 2000.''
In other WinHEC news:
Ballmer talked at length about ``reinventing the PC,'' calling for hardware
vendors to help Microsoft make the PC less error prone, less difficult to
use and more exciting. He said Microsoft is working with IBM,
Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Computer Corp., Compaq Computer Corp., Micron
Electronics Inc. and Gateway to make that happen.
A 64-bit version of Windows 2000 isn't far down the road, according to
Ballmer, who said the company is working on a 64-bit version today,
simultaneously with efforts to get the 32-bit version of Windows 2000 out
the door. He said 64-bit Windows 2000 will be the next major upgrade. The
32-bit version, which has been on the drawing board for years, has an
internal Microsoft target date of October.
Microsoft announced today that it plans to ship a Windows Server appliance
in the second half of this year. The appliance, geared toward small
businesses and consumers, was designed to handle share file, print and
Internet capabilities.
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