Dell has pipped bitter rival Compaq to the post by announcing a migration programme which will allow its corporate customers to move to Windows 2000. And part of its strategy is to move corporate users first to Windows NT 4.0, making the upgrade path easier. Jumping from NT 3.51 to NT 5.0 is non-trivial. Jumping from Win98 to Win2000 is very serious. The company said its programme, undertaken jointly with Microsoft, will have separate components including identifying legacy hardware support and creating device driver support for Dell systems. In addition, Dell said it had already moved parts of its own mission critical business to Win2000. That suggests, as exclusively reported here some months ago, that Microsoft is well on its way to delivering its final beta by Thanksgiving. ®