Microsoft beefs up .Net Server
C|Net | at | by Mike
Microsoft said late Thursday that Windows.Net Server, the successor to its Windows 2000 Server operating system, will not ship during the first half of 2002, as Microsoft had earlier indicated. The company now hopes to issue the first release candidate--or near-final testing version--sometime in the summer and a final version later in the second half of the year. Conceivably, many customers might not receive the product until next year.
The product pushback could have another unforeseen benefit: giving Microsoft customers more time to update their server operating systems from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2000.
Microsoft can use the extra time to beef up .Net Server's security features, in response to Chairman Bill Gates' "Trustworthy Computing" initiative. In a mid-January e-mail to Microsoft employees, Gates said the company must make security a top priority, even more than new product features.
"We sort of expected this delay, especially after they started the trustworthy Windows initiative, that they might want to include more stuff in .Net Server to take advantage of that," said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. I think people would have been skeptical if Microsoft had delivered a brand-new product without tying (in) whatever it is they learned from this trustworthy Windows initiative they're hyping."