Multimedia and Windows NT

If you're looking to justify that 200-MHz Pentium Pro, this is the issue foryou. Windows NT Workstation is making inroads into all areas of multimedia-3Dgraphics, video editing, Web development authoring, and more. We've spent morethan a 1000 hours researching this topic to give you an honest assessment of theimpact Windows NT is making on the multimedia industry.

As multimedia gains momentum in corporations worldwide, MIS has anopportunity to be proactive in its implementation to make multimedia partofits suite of supported applications. Windows NT Workstation is a seriousalternative to Macintosh and UNIX workstations for multimedia. Power users canuse the same machine on their desktop for high-end multimedia applications andPC-based office automation applications. This means one less platform for MIS todeal with. MIS can manage these power users and not say, "You're on yourown," just because they require an unsupported platform.

Windows NT Workstation is attracting the major players in the 3D graphicsarena: Lightwave, Softlmage, Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, Elastic Reality,Photomorph, and others have implemented native Windows NT solutions. Microsoftpurchased Softlmage, a respected 3D graphics package, last year and ported it toWindows NT. In less than a year, Microsoft has taken this $50,000 SGI-basedsolution and repackaged it with third-party hardware for less than $15,000. Atthis price point even the most die-hard UNIX fans will take a look.

What about digital video editing? Amiga's demise left a void-and Windows NTWorkstation was ready to fill it Windows NT Workstation has theopportunity to be the dominant player in this market by 1997. Products such asAvid's Real Impact and in:synch's Speed Razor bring commercial-quality videoediting to PC desktops. Windows NT reduces the cost of entry, and this is givingcorporate users access to tools that were previously out of reach.

Windows NT Workstation still has some way to go: Macintosh continues todominate multimedia authoring and desktop publishing. High-end Macintosh usersare the most loyal computer users I've seen: They'll need to see their favoriteapplications running natively on a fast Windows NT-based workstation beforethey'll even consider making the switch. Most of the major authoring packagesare moving to Windows NT within six months. Even Adobe and Quark, two bigplayers in desktop publishing, consider Windows NT to be a strategic platform.

What about Windows 95? Professional multimedia developers never consideredWindows 3.x to be a serious contender for their day-to-day work. Its notuncommon to find 32-to-128MB of RAM on some graphics workstations. Windows 95does not provide that kind of scalability. Both power users and largeorganizations (including Alcoa, Bose, Charles Schwab, Barclays Bank, MCI,Merrill Lynch, and the US Coast Guard) are skipping Windows 95 in favor ofWindows NT Workstation.

So when will Microsoft give Windows NT Workstation the attention itdeserves? That should come with Windows NT 4.0. Look for coverage in nextmonth's issue.