January 17, 1999

Office 2000 is expected to be released in the second quarter 1999. (The last I heard, it will come on 6 CD-ROMS.)

Windows 2000 is expected to be released in the third quarter 1999.

It looks like Macro$lop is once again looking out for the best interests of consumers! *NOT*!

The system requirements for Windows 2000 are a minimum 300MHz Pentium II and 64Mbytes of RAM. Hard drive requirements weren't even mentioned! Knowing how Macro$lop underestimates the needs of their software (anyone remember Win95 was supposed to be able to run [crawl?] on a 486-33 with 8mb ram), you might want to buy a powerful machine than that to try to run their new operating system. And if the distribution version of Office 2000 comes on 6 CDs, you may need a 4 or 5 gig hard drive just to load the office suite.

According to estimates in a recent article (Information Week - January 11, 1999 - Office 2000 Pricing Set), only about 33% of existing computers will be capable of running Windows 2000 software. (That is if you believe Macro$lops self-serving low-ball estimates of system requirements.)

Aren't you glad Macro$lop is giving you an excuse to upgrade you computer once again?

-The Cynical Optimist