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Starting tomorrow, the Internet will become an integral part of any personal computer, when a Web browser face appears on an operating system body.
But for all the talk of integrating the once-disparate technologies, Microsoft’s (MSFT) additions make Windows 98 little more than a shrink-wrapped service pack. And this leaves the top software company to answer one simple question: Why upgrade to Windows 98?
"The right way to think about this is that Windows 98 equals Windows 95.1," said Chris LeTocq, principal analyst for the market research firm Dataquest.
Microsoft officials say Windows 98 offers improved performance and makes hardware peripherals easier to install. "Windows 98 will do for hardware what Windows 95 did for software," said Kim Akers, Microsoft product manager for Windows 98.
The new operating system will feature the universal service bus, a software extension that can readily speak the languages of numerous peripherals, including DVD drives and scanners. The result is that users will no longer have to struggle to get their PCs to recognize and operate a new peripheral, a process that often drives users to giving up on a new piece of hardware.
"Scanners are the No. 1-selling peripheral," explained Akers. "But scanners are also the item that is most often returned to the stores because of user frustration."
Windows 98 also tries to ease the burden of PC maintenance, a process that users often don’t think about, noted Akers. "It’s more like how you take your car in for tuneups. It turns out that you have to do the same for your PC."
To this end, the new operating system automates the process of tuning up a user’s hard disk by running the maintenance utilities automatically. Other improvements include gains in hard-disk space and application-launching speed, due mostly to the integration of system improvements originally made to Windows 95.
Despite all these enhancements, the general reaction from Usenet forums, such as dejanews.channels.computers-science, was to damn the operating system upgrade with faint praise.
Users who liked Windows 98 called it a "worthy, but much less significant upgrade" and noted that it didn't crash as often Windows 95. Those who sounded a negative chord took issue with having to buy a new operating system that they see as a series of bug fixes.
The US$89 upgrade is not for everybody. Microsoft is promoting Windows 98 for consumers, not businesses. And businesses still have a while to wait for Windows NT 5.0, the upgrade that is intended for use on corporate networks. Users have to wonder what Microsoft’s true intentions are for Windows when the company seems to be trumpeting NT, noted LeTocq.
Historically, Microsoft's product rollouts have been a clue as to the company's primary interests. In 1990, the Windows 3.0 celebration was a public display of its intentions not to put much effort behind its joint development project of OS/2 with IBM. The rollout featured hundreds of PC software makers with shipping applications that were compatible with Windows 3.0. A few months later, Microsoft and IBM officially dissolved their collaborations on OS/2 and other operating systems, with the latter having few developers in its corner.
Three years ago, the big Windows 95 fest was a show demonstrating Microsoft’s dominance. Again, many software vendors had applications ready to go the day Windows 95 shipped.
But today, Microsoft is as inclined to talk about all the applications that are being developed for Windows NT 4.0 as it is to talk about Windows 98 features. These signs point to the eventual convergence of corporate and consumer Windows.
Market research firms are also noting this convergence in the operating system market. Recent projections from Dataquest indicate that Microsoft will ship 88 million copies of both Windows 95 and Windows 98 combined this year, while shipping 14 million copies of its NT operating system. Next year, however, the number of shipments of NT will nearly double while units of Windows 98 will increase only slightly to 96 million.
Why then, is Microsoft issuing Windows 98? "It means 150 million dollars to them," said LeTocq.
"The people who will upgrade to it will be the PC hobbyists who see this as entertainment," he continued. "They’ll burn a couple of days over the weekend to install it."
