From...

July 20, 1999
Web posted at: 3:36 p.m. EDT (1936 GMT)

by Sharon Gaudin

(IDG) -- Corporate users, who only months ago were calling for Windows 2000 migration tools, are now finding themselves awash in a sea of products that do just that. Although the individual tools do their jobs, the sheer number of tools needed and the combined cost may make the migration even more burdensome.

Companies like Mission Critical Software Inc., FastLane Technologies Inc. and Entevo Corp. are pushing Windows 2000 migration and management tools into the market months before Microsoft Corp.'s new operating system is expected to ship. Now with about a dozen tools hitting the market and at least a dozen more expected users are adding up the cost of the tools and the training to use them.

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"If there's going to be an add-on for this or special software for that, there's going to be a very high learning curve for the IT department," said Mark Yates, an administrator at Merck Frosst Canada Co., a Montreal-based pharmaceutical company that uses Tally Systems Inc.'s NetCensus management and migration tool. "You have to figure out if using so many is helping more than creating problems."

The move to Windows 2000 is generally considered to be one of the toughest migrations in computing history. And users say it may take a half-dozen tools to help them deploy the new operating system. That's in addition to the expense of the new operating system itself, the beefed-up hardware to run it and classes to train IT staffs to use it.

"You put all these tools together and what is supposed to help users is going to add a big layer of complexity and expense," said Laura DiDio, an analyst at Giga Information Group Inc. in Boston.

Microsoft has relied on third-party migration tools, licensing Mission Critical's Domain Migrator, which moves and consolidates domains. But a host of other players have tools on the market or in beta testing.

Arthur Doumas, senior network engineer at BJ Services Co., an oil and gas pumping company in Houston, plans to use FastLane's DM/Management tool to customize a new migration tool set. "I don't expect it to be smooth sailing, but I'm not going to get bogged down with a bunch of different tools," Doumas said.