Windows 2000 Special: Cleansing the Gates of perception - behind the hype of Win2000

Windows 2000 (Win2000) launches tomorrow. That much is certain. What is less clear-cut is just how successful Microsoft's latest mega-release will be.

The famous marketing machinery and PR spin-doctoring will kick-off in earnest on Thursday, but the negative coverage has already begun to seep out. Michael Gartenberg, VP of Gartner Group, wiped six per cent off the company's share price by claiming one in four companies will have trouble switching to Win2000.

An internal Microsoft memo leaked to a US magazine revealed the operating system was shipping with 63,000 'defects' - hence Gartner's advice to wait until the first service pack is released in June before embarking on a roll-out.

Investment bank Nomura was a beta tester of Win2000, and has enthusiastically backed Microsoft's pre-launch PR, hailing it as a top-notch product. But even there, one unnamed Nomura insider told Silicon.com that the OS was, in fact, "wobbly".

The EU decided last week to launch an inquiry into the product, warning that some of its features may be anti-competitive.

Although the US Department of Justice is yet to decide on its course of action, what was once considered unthinkable - namely the divestiture of Microsoft - is now gaining currency in the industry.

The company is also under more pressure than before from its competition. Novell - always renowned for its strength in directory services - launched a raft of ecommerce-related products earlier this month in what could be seen as a preemptive strike against Gates' attempt to claim the online world for himself.

Corel, rejuvenated of late by embracing all things Linux, bought Borland/Inprise for the tidy sum of around $1bn and will use the acquisition to bolster non-Microsoft application development. A desktop version of Linux should appear in November, with Linux versions of WordPerfect Office and CorelDraw software touted for release later this year.

Sun claims that its StarOffice suite - again, Linux-based - is doing well. Scott McNealy has done his bit to stir controversy by claiming Win2K will be a bigger nightmare than Y2K.

Even Apple has scraped itself off the canvas: it may have suffered too much damage in the established corporate world to recover, but it is nevertheless selling bucketloads of iMacs in Asia. The battle for supremacy in the Chinese PC market hasn't even begun, and Apple must have a significant headstart.

So is it all doom, gloom and despondency in Redmond? Far from it. The early signs are that Win2000 is more stable than its NT predecessors. While 63,000 defects may sound a lot, a defect is not the same thing as a bug. The end user will be largely unaware of these flaws.

It also looks as though it's more manageable and scalable than NT 4.0. Microsoft has improved its own directory, added multi-language functionality to the OS and (surprise, surprise) placed customers' desire to do ebusiness at the heart of all its development work.

So only a fool would suggest Win2000 will flop. It won't. But it's unlikely to get off to a flying start: caution has got to be the watchword. It's an excellent product, but it's not revolutionary. Users with no pressing need to upgrade or join the Windows throng would do well to follow Gartner's advise and wait for at least six months.

By then it will be truly stable. But its rivals will have moved on too and will be releasing other, equally viable options. We could be on the verge of entering an era of true competition in the OS market - with or without the intervention of the regulators. And that can only be a good thing.