In another informal polling of French Windows NT users, the operating system appears to be the overwhelming choice for upgrading end-user computing environments, particularly for file and print servers and client-server applications. But while Windows NT may be cheaper than Unix, it cannot yet replace high-end Unix servers, as it lacks sufficient power, security, scalability, and system development and administration tools. Sources expect this to change in the medium term. According to several sources, it also falls short of versions of NetWare 3.11 and later. Our sample in France included two very early users, one that got its first version of Windows NT two years ago, and the other that went into production last September. Those two, in fact, were the most positive of our seven in their evaluation. The first, Patrick Noirot, network systems manager at Airbus Industrie in Blagnac, said he was surprised that Windows NT turned out to be a solid operating system, having taken it on strictly as a print-file server. From a performance point of view, we could ultimately decide to go all NT (from a base of NT, Unix and NetWare servers), but we haven’t yet had the time to benchmark whether it would run Oracle applications and link to mainframe applications as well as Unix does, he said. But replacing NetWare would be difficult since certain of his industrial applications were standardised on NetWare and, for the moment, Windows NT lacks the functions of NetWare IP/X v.4, he said. Indeed, although one systems integrator indicated that Windows NT adoptors were often replacing versions of NetWare earlier than 3.11, he added NetWare 4.10 is completely superior to NT for big networks, from a security and administrative point of view. Also, Windows NT still has some ground to make up to equal Unix as a robust systems development system, according to many sources. Said one French systems engineer, who tested the limits of his patience trying to develop a full-blown NT system server, It’s the most frustrating system I’ve ever used, it’s not a very serious product at the moment. In the beta version I used in January, I was unable to create a system library. To build an NT systems library I finally had to put the objects on Unix and compile on NT, via LAN Manager. Among the system developers I know, the word is out to not use NT File System. Maybe for file servers it’s OK, but it’s too young yet to base any industrial systems on. French users also noted that the big improvement with Windows NT is its ease of use for the end user, rather than any benefits for systems developers. In fact, NT didn’t improve on the multitasking resource sharing we had with CTOS, said one.
