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Wolfpack Delayed Till Summer Despite Microsoft's Past Declarations for
First-Quarter Then First Half Release.
February 24 Issue of Computer Reseller News Features Full Story
MANHASSET, N.Y., Feb. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The Wolfpack clustering
software Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) once promised for the first
quarter of the year -- and then the first half -- is being delayed
again, according to an exclusive report by Edward F. Moltzen and
Kelley Damore in the February 24 issue of CMP's Computer Reseller
News. The story can also be found on CRN Online at
http://www.crn.com.
At least two vendors are having doubts about Wolfpack's quality or
competitiveness while another, IBM Corp., has been in so-far fruitless
distribution talks with Microsoft for three months. And the Redmond,
Wash.-based software maker is now saying, privately, its timeline to
have Wolfpack available by June is inoperative, said executives from
several PC companies working on the effort.
"Unofficially, Microsoft has told us it is going to be delayed," said
an executive from one PC vendor. "It will give present clustering
solutions more opportunity to become a standard. We think Microsoft
will claim that it has to go through 'exhaustive testing' and will
push it back just the way it pushed back Windows 95," the executive
said.
Windows 95 was delayed by several months before it was finally shipped
in August of 1995. Still, Microsoft said it is confident the project
is on a good track and will be ready sometime this summer.
"The public release date for phase 1 of Wolfpack is this summer," said
Mark Wood, product manager for Microsoft's business systems division.
"We are certainly there. As soon as it is released, Wolfpack will be
certified on a minimum of a dozen configurations from six different
vendors."
But two other vendors working with Microsoft are not throwing their
full support to the NT clustering initiative. One of these developers
said it has its own product it now offers and will continue to sell.
Another vendor said it is unimpressed with the present Wolfpack beta.
NCR Corp., Dayton, Ohio., plans to continue offering its own NT
clustering software, LifeKeeper, said Mark Sinnott, a Windows NT
marketing manager for NCR.
"We are not reliant upon Wolfpack for offering our customers
clustering," Sinnott said. Among other differences, he said,
LifeKeeper offers three-node clustering -- a feature that Microsoft
says will not be available until 1998.
Digital Equipment Corp., Maynard, Mass., IBM -- with its Phoenix
technology -- and Novell Inc., Orem, Utah -- with its Wolf Mountain
Java clustering initiative -- all have their own competing
technologies in various stages of development and marketing.
Published by CMP Media Inc., Computer Reseller News has a circulation
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to Silicon Valley with the product trends and industry news needed to
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All of CMP's publications and online products can be accessed through
the company's TechWeb(R) site on the World Wide Web
(http://www.techweb.com). Print titles include EE Times, Computer
Retail Week, InformationWeek, and Windows Magazine. SOURCE CMP Media,
Inc.
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