Wolfpack Delayed Till Summer Despite Microsoft's Past Declarations for First-Quarter Then First Half Release

The Wolfpack clustering software Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) once promised for the first quarter of the year -- and then the first half -- is being delayed again, according to an exclusive report by Edward F. Moltzen and Kelley Damore in the February 24 issue of CMP's Computer Reseller News. The story can also be found on CRN Online at http://www.crn.com/.

At least two vendors are having doubts about Wolfpack's quality or competitiveness while another, IBM Corp., has been in so-far fruitless distribution talks with Microsoft for three months. And the Redmond, Wash.-based software maker is now saying, privately, its timeline to have Wolfpack available by June is inoperative, said executives from several PC companies working on the effort.

"Unofficially, Microsoft has told us it is going to be delayed," said an executive from one PC vendor. "It will give present clustering solutions more opportunity to become a standard. We think Microsoft will claim that it has to go through 'exhaustive testing' and will push it back just the way it pushed back Windows 95," the executive said.

Windows 95 was delayed by several months before it was finally shipped in August of 1995. Still, Microsoft said it is confident the project is on a good track and will be ready sometime this summer.

"The public release date for phase 1 of Wolfpack is this summer," said Mark Wood, product manager for Microsoft's business systems division. "We are certainly there. As soon as it is released, Wolfpack will be certified on a minimum of a dozen configurations from six different vendors."

But two other vendors working with Microsoft are not throwing their full support to the NT clustering initiative. One of these developers said it has its own product it now offers and will continue to sell.

Another vendor said it is unimpressed with the present Wolfpack beta. NCR Corp., Dayton, Ohio., plans to continue offering its own NT clustering software, LifeKeeper, said Mark Sinnott, a Windows NT marketing manager for NCR.

"We are not reliant upon Wolfpack for offering our customers clustering," Sinnott said. Among other differences, he said, LifeKeeper offers three-node clustering -- a feature that Microsoft says will not be available until 1998.

Digital Equipment Corp., Maynard, Mass., IBM -- with its Phoenix technology -- and Novell Inc., Orem, Utah -- with its Wolf Mountain Java clustering initiative -- all have their own competing technologies in various stages of development and marketing.

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SOURCE: CMP Media, Inc.

CONTACT: Leslie Dunbar of CMP Media, 516-562-7040 or ldunbar@cmp.com