A Tale of Two Windows

By Richard Morochove

First published June 25, 1998

It is the best of software. It is the worst of software. It is the most significant program released this year. It is the least significant program released this year.

Logically, today's release of Microsoft's Windows 98 should convey all the excitement of a few centimetres of snowfall in a Canadian January. It's an entirely predictable seasonal event that will slightly inconvenience many people.

Yet because Windows is the dominant PC operating system, even the relatively minor improvements in this version will affect the sales of PCs and their peripherals along with thousands of software applications.

Feature for feature, Windows 98 ranks among the least improved Windows upgrades Microsoft has ever released. If Windows 95 was a giant step forward in the life of the operating system, then Windows 98 is a tentative baby step.

Is this all Microsoft could come up with in the three years, less a couple of months, since the launch of Windows 95?

In one sense, this reflects the growing maturity of Windows. Rather than bedazzle, and possibly alienate, computer users with a new interface that might incorporate a significant advance such as voice recognition technology, Microsoft has opted for the safe choice with a Web-like interface. Even this improvement, along with several others, has been available for months to Windows 95 users as a free download from the Microsoft web site.

Regardless of what's hot or not in Windows 98, it's the baby operating system born with a silver spoon in its mouth. It has a wonderful future and is practically guaranteed to be an enormous success. Market researcher Dataquest predicts Microsoft will sell over $1.3 billion (U.S.) worth of Windows 98 at retail over the next 12 months.

All the major PC makers are loading Windows 98 on their new models. As old stocks are cleared out over the next couple of months, it will be hard to find an Intel-based PC in stores that doesn't come with Windows 98.

Software developers are also cashing in. Symantec, for one, has had Windows 98 versions of its utility software available for several weeks.

In 1995 we saw hordes of eager buyers line up at midnight to be the first on their block to own Windows 95. That juggernaut of a marketing campaign from Microsoft and its partners is reputed to have cost in the neighbourhood of $1 billion (U.S.).

Microsoft is playing it low key this time out, with little of the advance advertising of 1995. Even so, retailers offered computer users a special deal, a triumph of marketing genius over logic. You could reserve your very own copy of Windows 98, if you plunked down a cash deposit in advance.

Yet Windows 98 is no rare collectible available only in a limited edition. We're talking software, here. If supplies run low, I am confident Microsoft will make as many more copies as required.

Most computer users won't buy Windows 98 in the stores. They'll wait until they purchase a new computer that comes with the new upgrade. Even though Microsoft has made it easy to install, switching to a new operating system is still inconvenient and potentially prone to glitches.

The launch hoopla has also been downscaled from 1995. This year there's no Microsoft banner over 100 metres long hanging from the CN Tower, leading the way to a carnival at its base. A San Francisco-based event will be broadcast live via satellite to selected movie theatres across Canada this evening. Still, this downsized launch will generate more excitement than any other software event this year.

Why need Microsoft do anything more, when Windows will sell well even if it doesn't? Why spend ostentatiously when the U.S. Justice Department and some 20 U.S. states are watching Microsoft's every marketing move?

While it once appeared the anti-trust suits launched by Justice and the states might hold up the release of Windows 98, in the end they proved no hindrance. In fact the enormous publicity generated by the legal actions provided invaluable pre-launch publicity for the product.

Yet the root cause of the suits, Microsoft's bundling of Internet software with Windows, was initiated with Windows 95.

If Windows 98 is no big deal, why is Microsoft releasing it at this time? Because it can. Windows is an enormous money-spinner for Microsoft, which has built the fortunes of hundreds of millionaires.

In Forbes Magazine's latest ranking of the world's wealthiest, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates once again comes out on top, with a net worth estimated at a mind boggling $51 billion (U.S.). Paul Allen, a Microsoft co-founder who hasn't been actively involved with the company for many years, occupies the number 4 spot on the list, worth $21 billion (U.S.). Gates' lieutenant Steve Ballmer is number 11, worth $10.7 billion (U.S.). CW

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