Gates: Windows will only grow in the future

Bill Gates opened the WinHEC conference this week with a keynote speechwhere he predicted the continued growth of Windows, thanks to its scalability, new power management features, and upcoming technology such asdigital TV. Gates also introduced a new member of the Windows family ofoperating systems, "Windows Terminal," Microsoft's first NC-type product.Windows Terminal is a terminal system that runs the operating system froma central server. The device is a notch down from the NetPC and will be aso-called "thin client" running "remote Windows" over the network.

Gates also announced that Memphis, the next release of Windows 95, and Windows NT 5.0 would be released in 1998. He said that Microsoft willcombine the two operating systems after these 1998 releases. "Most customers will have mixed environments for some time," however, he added.

The Microsoft CEO expects to see millions of NetPCs in the near future aswell. He demonstrated Zero Administration Windows (ZAW), a new technologythat allows network administrators to configure each machine so that theusers cannot overwrite system settings. Also demoed were DVD multimediaapplications and the new DirectX 5.0 technology.