Choosing a server for your business is expensive and
time-consuming. It doesn't help when Microsoft is trying to
convince you that upgrading or buying a new server is good for your
business, says Simon Moores.
It must have been late last summer, at the Microsoft
Campus on future operating systems, that I asked how many people in
the audience were using Windows NT, Windows 2000 and, of course,
Windows XP.
It came as no great surprise that people were still quite
happily using Windows NT, but the number of people doing so was
rather more than I expected.
Windows 2000 migration was still very much "work in progress"
and in between were those organisations, in both the private and
the public sector, that couldn’t decide whether they should jump
straight to Windows XP on the desktop, missing out Windows 2000
completely or wait and see what kind of rabbit Microsoft pulls out
of the hat next.
Fiddling with the server names hasn’t helped much either. After
all, is a server a .net server or .not anymore?
Server software accounts for about 20% of Microsoft's sales, or
$3.4bn of the $16.3bn in sales reported in the six months before
Christmas.
Even in the middle of an IT recession, Microsoft saw its server
sales grow 13% during the period. Convincing its customers to
upgrade or buy new servers is important in a flat market. To remind
you of some of the recent Windows server releases, between April of
2001 and this month we have had:
1. Windows 2002 Server
2. Windows .net Server
3. Windows .net Server 2003
4. Windows Server 2003
Microsoft claims Windows Server 2003 includes the latest .net
components built in, is less expensive to manage, more secure and
easier to install than its predecessors.
Of equal importance, in the eyes of many, is that it is also the
first server built with Trustworthy Computing as its priority and
is defensively priced against Linux.
I’m sure that Windows Server 2003 sounds very attractive if you
happen to be starting your business from a blank sheet of paper,
but for most IT managers, changing servers every three to five
years is not attractive. This involves both cost and business
interruption.
Microsoft, as does every company, needs a predictable revenue
stream to satisfy its shareholders, but the interests of business
and the software industry are opposed where new server releases are
concerned.
To make its Trustworthy Computing strategy viable, Microsoft
needs to have all its customers singing from the same hymn sheet,
and that involves ditching anything that isn’t up to date.
The trouble is that several million servers aren’t easily
swapped out overnight, and it’s going to take another three years
before the new and improved Windows 2003 occupies the same dominant
space in the enterprise that Windows 2000 and Windows NT do
today.
This server cycle is an expensive and time-consuming
merry-go-round with no solution in sight, and no way for any of us
to get off without the unacceptable risk of business interruption
in the process.
Meanwhile, Microsoft resembles a one-legged man on a bicycle,
who has to keep pedalling new server releases or risk falling
off.
What do you think?
Do you plan to keep on scaling the Windows Server
ladder? Tell us in an e-mail >> CW360.com
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ZentelligenceSetting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of the futurist writer, broadcaster and Computer Weekly
columnist Simon Moores.