Entry No.95c

IT Writers Awards

Standfirst

Windows 2000 may well represent the coming of age of Microsoft as a truly enterprise-ready solution provider. However it can't completely ignore those doubting customers and the baggage of the past, as Cameron Tomes discovers.

Speak to any savvy real estate investor about the golden rules of buying your first home and it's an odds-on bet they'll respond with the time-honoured cry of "location! location!, location!".

However, when the topic of conversation is last month's launch of Windows 2000 by Microsoft most savvy Australian IT managers are a little less gung-ho. For them, the decision to upgrade either their desktop or server platforms to Windows 2000 is more about timing! timing!, timing!

With the exception of Microsoft Australia's major corporate customers - including the likes of St George, Westpac and ANZ - the majority of IT executives contacted by Asia Pacific Banking Technology had more pressing and strategic issues on their minds.

Peter Woods, IT director for AAP Information Services in Sydney, neatly encapsulated the common view. "To put it bluntly, why would you bother considering Windows 2000 if your current network is meeting all your requirements" he asked.  Woods, like many of his medium-to-large corporate counterparts, suggested that, at the earliest, he might take a closer look at Windows 2000 later this year.  "We're in no hurry to migrate to Windows 2000," he said. "We may reassess the situation in the future, but I don't see any driving force that would compel us to migrate."

Meanwhile, heavy hitters ANZ, St George and Westpac have all warmed very quickly to the prospect of standard operating environments, reliability and web-enabled application delivery. It came as little surprise last month when long-time Microsoft alliance partner ANZ revealed plans to rationalise its multi-platform operating system environment of IBM OS/2, Windows 3.1 and Windows NT by rolling out Windows 2000 onto its network of 29,000 PCs by 2002. For David Boyles, head of technology, e-commerce and payments at ANZ, the deal was all about maintaining a "consistent technology environment". He expects Windows 2000 to realise major cost reductions, improve customer service and streamline global application development and deployment processes for the organisation.

Westpac has adopted Windows 2000 with the curious approach of developing what it calls a "stateless environment" consisting of PCs with standard interfaces and configurations. Westpac is working with Microsoft's internal developers to build standard Windows 2000 feature sets. 

At St George, Windows 2000 fever hasn't hit quite as hard, despite predictions by its CIO, John Loebenstein, that a staged rollout is not far off. "Like most of Microsoft's major corporate customers we have been tinkering with Window 2000 for some time," he said.  "At this early stage the platform looks pretty good."  Loebenstein suggested that internal benchmarking, particularly at the desktop level, had convinced him that a Windows 2000 desktop rollout "will definitely happen, the question is when". 

Glowing references
Naturally, Microsoft is acutely aware that glowing references from organisations of the calibre of ANZ, Westpac and St George are crucial to the widespread adoption of Windows 2000. According to Paul Wilkinson, Microsoft Australia's Windows product manager, around 40 local organisations have worked closely with Microsoft in an early adopter capacity with all running Windows 2000 to varying degrees internally and externally. A further 4000 small to medium organisations also had access to beta versions of the operating system. Yet as nice as all this high-level developer support and strategic counsel from Microsoft sounds, reality is that most Australian banking and finance organisations have their collective hands full developing customised "killer" applications or migrating to Windows NT, Windows 2000's predecessor.

The Commonwealth Bank, one of Microsoft's largest Australian customers, has strong views about deploying technology for technology's sake.  Speaking to Asia Pacific Banking Technology last month, its CIO Howard Morris said the bank now passed all technology upgrade projects to its outsourcing partner, EDS Australia. "The bank itself is not focussed on Windows 2000," Morris said. "That's something EDS is evaluating for us. We already run Windows NT as a common operating environment."  Morris said the beauty of the Commonwealth's partnership with EDS is that the bank can concentrate solely on business development rather than technology maintenance.  "We can dedicate all of our resources to identifying the business requirements for new technologies instead of just rolling out technology because it is available."

Barry Los, MIS manager at Credit Union Australia, "hasn't taken much notice" of Windows 2000 having just bedded down a company-wide upgrade to Windows NT version 4 and Windows 95. "Our network guys have got about 59 things on their list at the moment, most of those I would classify as being more strategic to the company than rolling out Windows 2000," Los said. "Combined with the usual reports that Windows 2000 could be a little unstable, I would be very inclined to wait for the second or third versions before committing to anything," he added. 

The last word
Upgrade is certainly the last word Garry Copland, IT manager at Sydney-based American Re-Insurance, wants to hear right now. His organisation has also just installed Windows NT Service Pack 4 on both desktops and server and "it's integrating quite nicely with our Unix applications", according to Copland.  "I don't see the point in investing in technology for technology's sake. For that reason, I'm not interested in new features of Windows 2000, such as USB support."  Copland said American Re-Insurance would refresh its desktop platform next month, with the intention of sticking to Windows NT as his platform of choice. "The costs involved in migrating applications and upgrading hardware, need to be carefully considered," Copland said.  

However, a recent Meta Group study suggests a Windows 2000 migration would, in fact, be about A$1185 cheaper per user to the comparative upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. The study claimed that a Windows 2000 upgrade would cost between A$1106 and A$1264 per user less than the comparative Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 migration of around A$2370 per user three years ago. Meta also concluded that, depending on a range of cost drivers, including migration scope and design and testing, Windows 2000 client migration costs will range from about A$395 per user to more than A$2844 per user at the most complex level.

Certainly, Windows 2000 will have its supporters on the desktop level. However, the acid test for Microsoft will come at the server level where industry support is divided, to say the least.

Loebenstein is reserving his judgement on a possible Windows 2000 server installation. St George has been a loyal Novell NetWare client, but like many other organisations has deployed a host of Windows NT application servers.
"Novell is very established here and we have no reason to change our NetWare server strategy just yet. There is simply no business case," Loebenstein said.

Andrew Wong, technical director of i7, Seven Network's Internet business, has been playing with the Gold Release version of the operating system and is quite happy with its initial performance.  However, Wong wasn't so enthused about embracing Microsoft's Active Directory technology. Active Directory is Microsoft's long-awaited response to Novell's industry-proven Novell Directory Services (NDS) platform. "As far as Active Directory goes, forget it for a while," Wong warned. "In testing we have encountered too many administrative changes and overheads to consider adopting the directory."

For Woods, the cost and time needed to migrate many of the organisation's mission-critical, in-house developed applications is just too prohibitive.  "It seems every time Microsoft releases new technology platforms there is always a migration/upgrade cost to be worn and I expect Windows 2000 to be no different."

Meta Group's findings appear to support the apprehension expressed by most Australian IT executives over Windows 2000's stability in the enterprise arena. In its summary, the report said, "While our research of Windows 2000 beta tests has shown the operating system to be quite stable, we recommend most users wait for the first service release (three-six months after the release) to begin serious migrations."  Microsoft's Wilkinson countered, saying: "Customers will always have differing deployment and technology refresher strategies." While reluctant to issue his seal of approval for Windows 2000 at the server level, Loebenstein wasn't backward in coming forward with admiration for Microsoft's recent attempts to quiz major corporates on their operating system needs. "It's no secret that Microsoft have taken a fair amount of flack in the media, with some of that criticism certainly warranted," Loebenstein said. "But, you have to commend Microsoft this time for putting together what looks to be a very robust platform. "It's bloody solid and very tough to crash at the desktop," he concluded. J


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Take the Win 2000
success test
Senior management might be very keen to head down the Windows 2000 road in search of cost savings, but you'd be crazy not to ask yourself the following crucial questions before committing the resources. Based on the size and complexity of your organisation, what timeframe do you consider would be appropriate to complete a thorough Windows 2000 migration project? Are you prepared to break existing PC refresher schedules to get your hands on new desktop features such as 32-bit operating capability, universal serial bus (USB) support smart card support?  If you are already running Windows NT Workstation and/or Server, are there any compelling business reasons for upgrading to Windows 2000? Can you safely migrate mission-critical applications across to Windows 2000? J

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