from The Executive Software Team

First, what some will consider sad, although understandable news:  Compaq
has announced it will no longer release products for Windows NT on Alpha -
in either 32 or 64-bit form.  A company statement said that the last
NT-on-Alpha machine will ship later this year, but also stressed that Compaq
would continue to support NT on Alpha as long as needed by customers.   The
reason for this change, according to the statement, is that Compaq is
streamlining its product lines, and has made the decision to keep its
Windows NT offerings strictly on the Intel platform.  Compaq will not be
supporting Windows 2000 on Alpha at all.

Shortly on the heels of Compaq's statement, Microsoft announced it would
continue to support 32-bit Windows NT on Alpha with technical support,
updates or QFEs (Quick Fix Engineering), and service packs for Windows NT
Workstation 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0 products, as well as other
existing 32-bit Alpha-based products such as SQL Server and Exchange Server.
These service packs and QFEs will be developed and released concurrent with
x86 releases as needed by Microsoft customers.   Microsoft will, however,
discontinue development of future Windows products for the Alpha platform,
including Windows 2000.

Just a quick note on Alpha's passing from what is currently the largest
market in the computer industry:  This is another hard lesson learned in
technology vs. marketing.  Alpha was one of the first 64-bit RISC chips
released, and has consistently held records for the fastest production chip
in the world.  Had Digital Equipment Corporation, original developer and
marketer of the chip, aggressively pursued broad market share early on, we
might not be sitting here now anticipating Intel's 64-bit Merced chip, which
is still about a year away from mass production, while probably the best
64-bit chip ever produced is quietly ushered into the background. 

That said, a milestone was achieved by Intel a few days after the Alpha
news:  The announcement was made at the Intel Developer Forum in Palm
Springs that the Merced chip is now running 64-bit Windows in laboratory
environments.   And not only was the announcement made, an actual
demonstration was done.

Coincidentally, Microsoft announced that 64-bit Windows will be available
during the first half of 2000.  The OS will maintain backward compatibility
with 32-bit applications, because the source code is common to both
environments -- developers need only recompile applications to optimize them
for the 64-bit environment.  Microsoft developer tools and BackOffice
applications for the 64-bit environment will be available in the second half
of 2000.  Microsoft has not yet announced pricing and packaging details.

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