Cost warning over Windows 2000

Report says move to OS will be 'prohibitively expensive' but pioneer university remains optimistic.

Migration to Windows 2000 could be prohibitively expensive, writes Paul Rubens.

Large companies face migration costs totalling millions of pounds, says analyst, the GartnerGroup. That could make it almost impossible to secure a return on investment based on cost savings from using the software before it becomes obsolete.

Gartner estimates that migrating 2500 staff from Windows NT Workstation 4.0 to Windows 2000 Professional will cost between $1250 (£781) and $2050 per PC. The cost of moving a similar number of Windows 95 or 98 users to Windows 2000 will be even higher: between $2015 and $3100 per PC.

Migrating laptops will be higher still.

The analyst says that migration cost overruns will be rife. It predicts that 80 per cent of companies with more than 500 desktops will exceed their migration budgets by at least 25 per cent over the next three years.

Companies that do not have a 'manageable desktop environment' stand little chance of recouping their migration costs.

An Arthur Andersen report commissioned by Microsoft claims the features of Windows 2000 will offset the costs of migrating to the software, which will in any case vary widely from company to company.

However, it concedes that firms face new hardware purchases, administrator and end-user training, costs associated with configuration and deployment, compatibility testing, and even possible re-engineering of application software.

Nick McGrath, Microsoft's Windows product marketing manager, said Gartner's analysis is flawed. "One of the highest costs it quotes is for new hardware, but typically the customer would incur that cost anyway," he said. "The price Gartner uses for software is also too high."