Companies that have already taken the plunge and upgraded to the new version of Windows generally praised the software's scalability and reliability. Ahead of Windows Server 2003's launch, Microsoft conducted a beta program for larger businesses interested in using the software on production systems. Chicago-based Information Resources provides sales and market research for companies selling consumer goods and pharmaceuticals. The company's 24,000 square-foot data centre handles about 122TBytes of information powered through mainframes, 115 eight-processor or greater Unix servers and 180 Windows-based servers. Information Resources is considering Windows Server 2003 in part because the company is moving away from 32-bit systems to 64-bit-based Itanium 2 servers. It is in the process of consolidating existing Unix servers onto Itanium 2 servers running the 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2003. Marshall Gibbs, Information Resources' chief information officer, said the company might not be as quick to switch from Unix if not for the 64-bit option. "The 32-bit environment wouldn't let me scale the models and offer the products that we need to be able to offer," he explained. "We have a 32-bit infrastructure that lets me get part-way down the path, but it's Microsoft's commitment to an enterprise-scale environment that's driving a lot of our decision making here." Gibbs said that he couldn't quantify for cost savings for two reasons: Information Resources is at the beginning of the roll out, and the company is adding capacity and power under the Windows setup versus the Unix environment. Gibbs said Information Resources' new servers running 64-bit Windows are more capable than are previous Unix systems, so "it's an apples to oranges comparison in terms of cost." The greater capacity means "the number of databases I host on a single server (increases) by 200 times and at the same time (the company can) increase the number of users on that server...ten-fold." Analog Devices also has found an important place for Windows Server 2003, even as the company focuses mainly on migrating existing servers from NT 4 to 2000. The semiconductor company used about six Windows Server 2003 systems to develop a business portal serving 8,800 employees. "The portal project was really a proof of concept for us more than anything else on Windows 2003," Forte said. New York-based JetBlue Airways could be the poster company for Windows Server 2003 and for standardisation on Microsoft software. The airline is consolidating on Unisys 32-bit and 64-bit servers, with plans to run Microsoft software across the company. JetBlue chose Windows over Linux for its computing infrastructure. "If tomorrow, I put Linux in my environment, I would have to hire server people to build, monitor, maintain and administrate those servers, and I would have to hire a development staff to develop applications under the Linux operating system," said JetBlue chief information officer Jeff Cohen. "I would need 50 percent more staff to run...operating systems" other than Windows, said Cohen. JetBlue sees the Unisys servers running Windows Server 2003 as a way of cutting costs, compared to previous setups used by the company, Cohen said. "We truly try to run a 100-percent Microsoft environment to keep the cost down, but if there are applications that we buy from vendors, whatever the required database is, that's what we run," he said.
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