Consumer NT will succeed Windows 98, says Gates

Bill Gates said this week at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) that the successor to Windows 98 will be a consumer version ofWindows NT that the company expects to have ready in 2-3 years. Windows 98is the last of the old Windows line, he admitted.

"It is the next major release that will get down to a Windows NT 'flavor' for consumers," Gates said. "We are still working out the feature set."

Microsoft's plan is for Windows NT to run on any desktop or server machinewhile Windows CE will be used in embedded and handheld devices. Even so,Windows CE is becoming more and more like NT with each new release.Using a standard "core" for each of its operating systems saves costs anddevelopment time.

To get consumers ready for Windows NT, Microsoft is raising the bar forentry-level consumer machines with its PC99 specification. In thisspecification, the base amount of RAM in a PC moves from 32 MB to 64 MB,which is far more comfortable for NT. With the rapid decline in RAMprices, this is no longer the problem it would have been a year ago.

While some people may wonder why they should bother with Windows 98 if a new release of NT is only a few years away, Gates argues that 98 fills avaluable role for the time-being. For starters, it will work great with allcurrent desktop machines.

"We took our time to do a major release with Windows 98," Gates said. Hebelieves that Windows 98 is a viable consumer platform for years to come.Most people disagree that Windows 98 is a major release, however, and givenits 4.1 version number, its hard to argue otherwise.

And even though Windows 98 is the end of the line, as far as major upgradesgo, that product will still be updated occasionally. Microsoft describeda "support package" for Windows 98 this week at WinHEC that is due in late1998. This package, which may be supplied in the form of a service pack,will add new capabilities to Windows 98, such as the ability to hot-swapdevices such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, and hard drives through a new slot in thefront of computers.

Before consumers embrace Windows NT, it will need to become much easier touse. Carl Stork, general manager for Windows hardware strategy at Microsoft, says that the consumer version of NT will not be identical tothe one that businesses get. For example, it will have to be much easier touse, he said