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Win 98 seen leading market
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June 17, 1998: 9:25 a.m. ET
Dataquest projects strong shipments, but cool interest in upgrades
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 98 will lead the worldwide operating system market, with new shipments outpacing upgrade units of the operating system, according to a report published Wednesday.
Market-research firm Dataquest, a unit of Gartner Group Inc. (GART), said Windows 98 will lead 1998 worldwide operating system shipments with 56.7 million units.
But Dataquest analysts said they expect modest to low interest in upgrades to Windows 98 from Windows 95, with upgrade shipments totaling about 5.5 million units.
Analysts said many business users will opt to wait for the next incarnation of the operating system.
"This is the last hurrah for the current architecture," said Chris Le Tocq, director and principal analyst for Dataquest's Personal Computing Software Worldwide program.
"The next version of Microsoft's consumer operating system, Windows 2000, will be based on [a Windows] NT kernel. The business user transition from Windows 95 to NT Workstation is gradually emerging."
Windows NT is Microsoft's operating system designed for large corporate networks.
"Most new systems are shipping with 32 MB [of random access memory]," Le Tocq added. "…The investment in a Windows NT system begins to look substantially similar to the investment in a Windows 98 system."
Dataquest also projected Microsoft will have a 95 percent share of worldwide operating system shipments by 1999.
Microsoft (MSFT) shares closed Tuesday at 89-7/8, up 3-15/16. 
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