News
Microsoft Beats June Goal of 100 W2K Certified Apps
- By Scott Bekker
- June 28, 2000
Microsoft Corp. surpassed an internal target of getting 100 applications certified for Windows 2000 by June 30.
With Windows 2000, Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) overhauled its software
logo program. In the past, Microsoft used logo programs to emphasize momentum
behind its platform. The Windows 2000 certification process emphasizes quality
instead, defining strict rules for how applications install themselves,
interact with the operating system and use disability features of the OS.
“We’ve crossed the boundary this month for 100 certified
applications,” said Peter Ollodart, a group manager at Microsoft. “We’re at 110
as of today,” he said.
The official list of certified applications was updated
over the last two days with about 35 new applications, and the list now shows 107 certified
applications. The list is maintained by Veritest, which does the certification
testing for Microsoft, at www.veritest.com/mslogos/windows2000/certification.
One high-profile addition to the ranks of certified
applications was ERP vendor J.D. Edwards’ (www.jdedwards.com)
suite of 13 OneWorld products. Another major application certification posted
today was IBM Corp.’s flagship RDBMS software, DB2. Aelita Software’s ERDisk
and FullArmor Corp.’s FAZAM 2000 tool for managing Group Policy in the Active
Directory were among other applications receiving certification.
Certification for SQL Server 2000 and Exchange 2000 Server
are right around the corner as well, Ollodart said.
Meanwhile, Ollodart says another 300 applications are in the
testing queue at Veritest’s four testing facilities worldwide.
“I don’t expect us to ever get to 1,000 [certified
applications], but I would say a couple more hundred over the next year is
something that we’re looking at,” Ollodart said.
Ollodart also says the list of Windows 2000 Ready
applications is growing rapidly. Windows 2000 Ready is a step below Windows
2000 Certified. It means a software vendor has tested to make sure its
application is compatible with Windows 2000, and that the vendor will support
customers who run the application on Windows 2000.
“We’re reaching the 10,000 mark in that area,” Ollodart
says. “We’re feeling pretty good about the momentum. ” – Scott Bekker
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.