According to Doug Michels, chief executive officer of the Santa Cruz Operation, Microsoft Corp has missed the biggest opportunity it could ever have had for getting corporate users to switch from Unix over to Windows NT: the Year 2000 problem. Every application out there is suspect, and it’s the biggest excuse IT directors have ever had for getting new systems in their budgets, said Michels. But large companies who thought seriously about making the NT switch were waiting for the improved reliability and scalabilty promised for NT 5.0, he said: they thought NT 5.0 was the one for more reliability – but then Microsoft pushed back the first shipments until after the Year 2000. So they’d have to rely on NT 4.0. Instead, most people have opted for the safe option, he said, upgrading their current systems. Accordingly, Michels promised its resellers, who have seen SCO’s revenues drop sharply over the last year, a good year if they were able to provide their users with integration and support. Michels couldn’t resist the obligatory dig at Microsoft, a necessary part of all the presentations at SCO Forum. We should have known there was a problem when Windows 98 wasn’t named Windows 1998 he said.
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