1996, Windows NT has increased its market share, and an ever increasing
number of organizations have bet their business on this OS. For 1997, I foresee
seven key areas that will affect enterprises that rely on NT.
Clusters: In August, I wrote that
Wolfpack, Microsoft's new clustering technology, has the potential to increase
the existing market for high-availability clusters tenfold. Before any product
has shipped, Microsoft has already partnered with the best enterprise players in
the market. With the help of Digital, Tandem, IBM, Compaq, Intel, Amdahl,
Stratus, Oracle, Vinca, and others, Microsoft has an incredible opportunity to
bring this enterprise solution to the high-volume market. Look for the first
Wolfpack-compliant solutions in the first quarter of 1997.
The "Designed for Windows NT and
Windows 95" logo: This new logo, which takes effect in January, will
force all Windows 95 applications vendors to support NT. Look for a huge
increase in native NT desktop applications.
Pentium Pro: By the beginning of
1997, a fully configured 180MHz Pentium Pro-based (P6) system will cost around
$2500. This development will spell the end of the Pentium series for corporate
buyers. By spring, a P6 with 32MB of RAM will be the standard business desktop.
Up to now, only RISC vendors were pre-installing NT Workstation, but now it will
come bundled with the P6. This bundling will triple NT Workstation's market. On
these systems, NT will significantly increase performance over Windows 95.
RISC vendors: The combination of a
500MHz Alpha, a faster PowerPC, and the P6 will put a serious dent in the
low-end UNIX workstation and server market. With the exception of Sun
Microsystems, UNIX vendors have already begun to sell NT-based solutions. RISC
vendors will spur Intel to get the P7, which HP codeveloped, in beta by 1997.
All this chip power will fuel the move to make NT a 64-bit OS, pushing it even
higher into the enterprise.
Directory service: For the past year,
Novell's NetWare Directory Service (NDS) has beat up NT's directory system,
while NT has dominated NetWare as an application server platform. Once an
organization starts depending on NT for serving applications, file and print
services aren't far behind. In fact, the directory service battle is NetWare's
last stand. If NT's new directory is as good as NDS, NT will put a serious dent
in NetWare sales. However, if NT loses this battle, NetWare will continue to
dominate as a networking platform and market share will increase. Look for Phase
1 of NT's new directory service in the first quarter of 1997.
Third-party support: If I stacked the
press releases I've received about new NT applications in the past three months,
the pile would be nine feet tall! In 1997, we will see an increase in
business-critical applications on NT. Already, more client/server accounting
packages are available for NT than any other platform. Most application vendors
who built their business on AS/400, UNIX, Mac, HP, and Windows are migrating
their business-critical applications to NT. In addition to software vendors,
hardware and service vendors will make NT their number one strategic platform in
1997. By the middle of 1997, we will start seeing device drivers and power
management for NT. This development will further close the Win95 gap, making the
selection of NT Workstation for the desktop easier than ever.
Competition for the back office:
Remember when we used to buy a word processor separately from a spreadsheet?
Then came Microsoft Office and the beginning of buying suites. Similarly, the
Internet/intranet is becoming a serious development platform that requires a
solid database, systems management, host connectivity, document management,
directory services, and messaging. Pricing and packaging will make buying the
whole suite easy. Sensing this trend, IBM, Oracle, and Netscape have introduced
products that compete directly with Microsoft BackOffice. This increased
competition will force tighter integration of the suite with NT as a competitive
advantage. In addition, these solid offerings will continue to push NT as an
open platform.
