Microsoft to base NC rival on NT 5.0

Microsoft last week released details of its defence against the challenge of the NC - a server-based architecture for Windows 95 and NT which copies as many of the NC's features as possible.

The next version of NT promises a world in which client operating systems and modularised applications will be stored on the server and delivered across the network.

The server will hold 'roaming' users' personal files and application profiles, and there will be an option for clients to access shared applications running on the server.

Richard Tong, vice president for desktop and business systems at Microsoft, admitted that the architecture of the NC paradigm and Microsoft's plans for NT 5.0 are very similar.

'The only thing you'll see on the client is the presentation. The back end is where the application runs, and the data is stored,' he said. All client configuration data will be held on the server.

NT 5.0 is promised to support both thick and thin clients. The target specification for the client is the NetPC, a standard for a low-cost low-maintenance PC that has been defined by an industry consortium including Intel and Microsoft.

Tong said Microsoft desperately needed the NetPC specification to include at least some local storage capacity.

'Effectively, you've got to download the entire operating system off the network. Trying to download 10Mb - the size of the NT kernel - is going to be a problem.

'One of the key reasons we've pushed Intel to include a cache disk in the specification is so that the second time you boot up, you're doing it from the hard disk,' he said.

The limited space on the cache disk will be conserved by downloading only those executable files which are expected to be called by the user, based on previous usage.

Microsoft admits that to preserve its empire and prevent a mass defection to the NC it must reduce PC operating costs.

Simon Witts, director of the enterprise business unit at Microsoft UK, said: 'If we don't understand the cost of ownership issue we'll be in trouble. (With the NC) Sun and Oracle have struck a chord with a huge customer need to get costs down.'