IT experts: Windows 2000 recommended for laptops

An influential group of IT experts has issued a report recommending that corporations immediately evaluate Windows 2000 Professional for its laptop users, regardless of whether they plan to implement Windows 2000 elsewhere in their organizations. The recommendation, which came this week from the Directions group, mirrors observations by other industry reviewers that Windows 2000 Professional is more than just a step up from Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0.

"IT directors that want to give mobile workers an 'anytime, anywhere' computing environment should seriously consider upgrading to Windows 2000 Professional," says DIRECTIONS analyst Rob Helm, noting the enhanced reliability and security supplied by Windows 2000 Professional. However, "companies need to make sure their laptop hardware can handle Windows 2000's requirements. On laptops over two years old, Windows 2000 probably won't work as well as what you are running now."

What's interesting here, of course, is that Directions is recommending Windows 2000 Professional to all companies, even those that might not ever upgrade to Windows 2000 Server. Directions notes that it is possible to "get most of Windows 2000's payoff" without updating the server. And, of course, Windows 2000 represents a huge jump in functionality on the client-side, specifically for mobile users. I recommend Windows 2000 to anyone using a laptop with a Pentium II processor and 64 MB of RAM or more