Microsoft pushes ahead with two Windows offerings

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it had reached new milestones for two of its Windows offerings that are under development. The company made available to beta testers Release Candidate 1 of Windows Millennium Edition (aka Windows Me). It also made available to hardware and software vendors, as well as a handful of corporate partners, Windows 2000 Datacenter Beta 2. Windows Me, the upgrade to Windows 95/98, is in its final testing stages and could be released to manufacturing any time within the next few months. Datacenter, the high-end Windows 2000 release, was due to ship commercially in June, but now is unlikely to be commercially available for a few months, based on previous Microsoft testing schedules. -- Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet News