THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508250646
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
When 900 people showed up for a free seminar on Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows 95 operating system last month, the executives of Virginia Beach-based Electronic Systems Inc. were overwhelmed.
``It was the biggest turnout, by far, that we've ever had for one of our shows,'' said G. Michael Herbert, marketing manager for Electronic Systems, a computer-systems integrator and office machines dealer. ``Looking back now, I don't think it was surprising given the amount of attention Windows 95 has been getting.''
What the huge turnout, mostly by business owners and managers, demonstrated is how desperately employers are still searching for a personal-computer operating system that will finally, truly, make them and their workers dramatically more productive.
Whether Windows 95 is that breakthrough - or whether it will be rife with time- and money-wasting ditches and dead ends that have frustrated many computer users and their bosses since the introduction of PCs 15 years ago - remains to be seen.
If a spot check with Hampton Roads employers is any indication, most won't be rushing to install the new operating system in their PCs, even though there's general optimism about Microsoft's latest advance.
``What I plan to do is evaluate it myself at home and then make some recommendations here,'' said Stephan Gordon, a vice president at Norfolk-based S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co. ``It's always prudent to go slow on something like this.''
John Chevrier, a computer-systems engineer at the U.S. Atlantic Command's Joint Training, Analysis and Simulation Center in Suffolk, has a similarly cautious attitude. ``We're not going to leap into it right away,'' he said. ``We'll probably wait for the next iteration.''
This reluctance on the part of employers is well-founded.
A change, even an upgrade, in a PC operating system can require extensive retraining of users and hefty investments in new computer software and hardware - all of which could be quickly made obsolete by the next evolution.
Then there are the inevitable problems making a new system support all the applications, like spreadsheets and word-processing programs, that employers rely on to conduct their day-to-day business. The rapid growth of networking - the linking of all PCs, printers, modems and even copiers in a company - compounds the risk of migrating from one system to another.
But there's also the risk of not keeping pace with technology's relentless and unforgiving march. And that means by this time next year, many of the same businesses that are now evaluating Windows 95 will be well along in actually using it.
Bob Hodges, computer-network administrator for Mary Immaculate Hospital in Newport News, is one who's not taking the wait-and-see approach. He has budgeted to buy Windows 95 for his hospital's PCs early next year and said Mary Immaculate will likely have converted three-quarters of them to the operating system by 1996's end.
Hodges has seen enough and heard enough to erase his doubts that the system is an improvement over previous Windows versions. He predicted Windows 95 will be easier to learn and far more hospitable to performing multiple tasks simultaneously. He also expects Windows 95 will make it easier for users to plug in hardware add-ons like CD-ROM drives and sound boards themselves and said the system will better shield them from hangups or crashes. As applications made especially to work with Windows 95 come out, personal computing should speed along much faster too, he contended.
All in all, he said, that means Mary Immaculate's training costs will be greatly reduced, its employees will complete tasks more quickly, and workers will spend less time waiting for technicians like him to come by to straighten out problems.
Breakthrough? He, for one, thinks Windows 95 will be that.
Hodges thinks the system will even make believers out of the hospital's nurses and nursing administrators, who he says have traditionally been wary of computers.
``Something like multi-tasking is going to be so transparent to them,'' he said, ``that they won't even know it's happening.''
The more typical employer's viewpoint on Windows 95 is Ed Miller's. He's the computer-network administrator for the Norfolk-based accounting firm of Goodman & Co.
Miller likes Windows 95 a lot. ``But I am afraid that there's some problem with it that I don't know about yet that we're not going to be able to deal with. So we're going to be adopting it slowly.''
But adopt it, Goodman & Co. will, Miller noted. That's because Windows 95 will come installed in all of the 25 to 30 computers, mostly laptops, that the accounting firm will buy in the next few months to get ready for the next tax season. The computer-makers made that decision.
Technology marches on - ready or not.
Hopefully, Windows 95 will mean fewer calls for Miller's Mr. Fixit expertise come tax season, a trying time for computer specialists at accounting firms.
It could happen. ``God, I hope so,'' Miller sighed. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by Joseph John Kotlowski
Customers wait to buy Window 95 at CompUSA near midnight on
Wednesday.
[Side Bar]
Pros & Cons
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by CNB