Giga advises users to delay move to NT 5

Research operation Giga Group advised users last week to delay a move to Microsoft's NT 5 and wait instead for later releases.

The warning, issued at this week's Giga World conference, echoed advice earlier this year from fellow research company Gartner Group. Both have stated that users should wait until NT 5 is stable and debugged before buying.

According to Rob Enderle, Giga director of desktop and mobile technology, over 85 per cent of the code for NT 5 is new and relatively untried. He recommended waiting for service pack 3, or even NT 5.5, not due for at least another year.

Talking at the Giga World Conference, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft vice president of sales and marketing, predicted a five to seven-year wait before component-based development systems take hold. He also anticipated that the PC will become scalable and robust enough to replace the mainframe. Ballmer refused to comment directly on Giga's statement.

He said acceptance of the Com/Corba model - which integrates Microsoft and industry standard object architectures - will be delayed initially by resistance from software developers, citing a poll of 9,000 Microsoft clients that indicated 'very few have implemented component-based systems'.

But Giga claimed that a similar on-the-spot survey of Giga World attendees about the use of Java as a software development environment quickly debunked Ballmer's client survey.

Ballmer called on software and hardware developers to continue innovating, and pleaded with them not to lose sight of the importance of interoperability.

More specifically, he said it was increasingly critical that Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP, Baan, and Peoplesoft strengthen their focus on customer feedback to steer future development.