Users Should Skip NT 5.0, Analysts Say

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June 29, 1998 (12:00 AM EDT)

By David Wilby,

Analysts at this month's GigaWorld IT Forum '98 in Arizona recommended users skip Microsoft's long-awaited Windows NT 5.0 release and wait for a later version.

The operating system is several times larger than previous versions of NT, and would not be recommended by Giga Information Group until it has been tested by its first customers, said Rob Enderle, director of desktop and mobile technology at Giga, in Boston.

"We just don't feel we can recommend the product until we wait for the first set of companies to drive out any bugs," said Enderle.

The core part of NT 5.0, its kernel, is reported to be around 80 percent newly written, said Enderle. "In our experience, when a brand new product hits -- and there is no testing or servicing of major components -- the market doesn't accept it very quickly," he said.

"The size of the program -- more than 30 million lines of code -- makes it not just arguably the biggest piece of software we have looked at, but also arguably several times bigger," Enderle said.

Future versions of the software -- either NT 5.5, NT 6.0, or service pack 3 -- would be available within the next two years, said Enderle, and would prove to be more stable platforms. "It's nothing against the NT 5.0, it's just it is new and pretty much untested," he said.

Companies preparing their computers for the year 2000 date change will not have the time to test NT 5.0, Enderle said. "If, as we believe, most people wait around two years, they will adopt the maintenance release of 5.5 or 6.0, and the maintenance release is always better than the first issue," he said.

Microsoft's promotional literature for Windows NT Workstation 5.0 said it would be "the premier desktop operating system for businesses and organizations of all sizes." The company said NT 5.0 would include the same key features as Win 98, such as second-generation plug-and-play and power management as well as a "Web-integrated" GUI, while extending any reliability, security, networking, and performance features attempted in NT 4.0.