Windows 98? Microsoft Slips Delivery Date Again

According to a story by Mary Jo Foley posted this evening on the Computer Reseller News online Web site (http://www.crn.com/), Microsoft Corp.'s Memphis, until recently known as Windows 97, has become a 1998 product, according to OEM and other industry sources.

Bottom line: Microsoft will not ship any new operating systems releases in 1997.

Microsoft officials privately have begun warning hardware partners not to expect to preload Memphis on systems this year, said OEM sources.

In addition, Microsoft has officially rechristened Memphis "Windows 9x." Until the past week or so, Microsoft and its partners commonly referred to Memphis as "Windows 97."

Memphis is the first full-fledged upgrade to Windows 95. It is slated to include an optional FAT32 file system, support for new PC Plug and Play hardware, and a "self-maintaining" capability enabling it to automatically find, download and install operating system updates and add-ons. It also is expected to include improvements to the Windows registry and new power- management features.

Product delays are not unusual for Microsoft -- or any software vendor, for that matter. Earlier this month, Microsoft quietly slipped its ship date for the next release of Windows NT to 1998 from late 1997 and has begun trickling out the word to OEMs and ISVs (CRN Online, Feb. 28).

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said last week that NT 5.0 would ship by midyear 1998, up to a quarter later than Microsoft officials were predicting earlier this month.

Microsoft's partners were disappointed by the prospects of an operating system delay. OEMs said they will be most severely impacted, both dollar- and marketing-wise, but resellers could feel pressure, as well.

Some industry watchers said cyclical shipping patterns were the real culprits, not sloppy code.

From a pure marketing standpoint, "There is no way Microsoft would have shipped any operating system in the last quarter of the year," said one industry insider. "And they definitely wouldn't call it Windows '97' if they did."

Microsoft was faced with a similar dilemma with its Office97 product. While the Office97 code was ready for release at the end of 1996 (at least according to beta testers), Microsoft decided to ship it commercially in early 1997, and changed the product's name from Office96 to Office97 at that time.

To preload systems with a new operating system release in time for the holiday season, OEMs need to receive code in late summer or early fall, at the latest. Once they receive golden masters from Microsoft, OEMs need to perform their own testing and tuning before loading the operating system on boxes.

Microsoft found out the hard way in 1996 the strict confines of operating system shipment schedules, when it missed by a matter of weeks the delivery targets for its OSR2 Windows 95 update. Very few OEMs managed to preload OSR2 on machines in time for holiday promotions.

"We're still on track for beta in (the second quarter) for Memphis, and we're still targeting 1997 for general product availability," said Phil Holden, product manager for Microsoft's Windows product team. "But we can't be really hard-core on (shipment) dates until we get the feedback from testers."

Published by CMP Media Inc., Computer Reseller News has a circulation of more than 115,000 and reaches influential readers from Wall Street to Silicon Valley with the product trends and industry news needed to sell comprehensive technology solutions.

CMP Media Inc. provides publishing, marketing and information services to the entire high-technology spectrum -- the builders, sellers and users of technology -- through print and electronic media. All of CMP's publications and online products can be accessed through the company's TechWeb® site on the World Wide Web (http://www.techweb.com/). Print titles include EE Times, Computer Retail Week, InformationWeek, and Windows Magazine.

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SOURCE: CMP Media Inc.

CONTACT: Mary Jo Foley of Computer Reseller News, 206-523-5465