But, he added, certification of products is new to Microsoft Corp., and the company should be commended for initiating it. Migrating to Win 2000 could be a problem for many agencies. To decide whether and when to upgrade, agencies will need to understand the extent of the potential problems. The vendor simply has to state that it tested the application for Win 2000 compatibility, that it works under that OS, and that it stands ready to provide Win 2000-related product support. Microsoft says about 4,000 applications are ready.
Certification goes much further.
This Buyers Guide lists enterprise-level applications, a few of them certified or scheduled to be certified, most of them still in the ready stage. The Client Application Specification handles management features, including those that affect application installation, shared computers and remote administration. It calls, for example, for a self-repairing installation that helps minimize conflicts among components that share Dynamic Link Library files. The specification also requires that the application make a smooth upgrade from a previous version of Windows. And in order to make support of a mixed environment easier, it requires the application to provide the same specification benefits to people using the application on platforms such as Win98 or NT 4.0.