Yes, Windows can be improved

Microsoft acknowledges Windows NT is not as robust as some other operating systems but plans to change this during the next few years, said a company official at the recent WebIT 97 conference in the US.

"We would not argue that NT solves everybody's problems.

"We know there's a lot of work to do," said Anthony Bay, general manager of Microsoft's Internet Servers Business unit.

By the year 2000 or shortly afterwards, there will be few business applications that do not run on NT, as the product is fitted with new functionality such as 64-bit processing, he said.

NT is being embraced by multiple vendors, he said.

"Most companies, except Sun Microsystems are doing something on NT," Bay said.

As per the vision of Bill Gates, the com-pany is focusing on two themes: the "digital nervous system", which stresses the availability of information, and the "Web lifestyle", for Web access to data, Bay said. Microsoft will also partner with companies such as Cisco on network directory standardisation, Bay said.