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By Ina Fried, 23 June 2004 08:55

NEWS Companies using the ageing Windows NT4 Server operating system are set to get a support reprieve from Microsoft.

Microsoft plans to offer custom support for the eight year old operating system to enterprise business users after its standard assistance runs out at the end of this year. The software giant said a surge of interest has led it to lower the rates it will charge for the custom service.

Peter Houston, Microsoft's senior director of Windows servicing strategy, said: "We have a cost of doing it. We are looking to share that cost across the customers that are interested."

The rate shift should help those businesses that have not upgraded from NT4 Server to the more recent Windows Server 2003. Microsoft has come under fire for not offering long enough support for products that are still widely used. However, it has been made several moves in recent years to extend its assistance services.

Houston said that fewer than 100 businesses have signed up, but even that number was more than Microsoft had expected. As a result, Houston said: "We were able to come down on the cost for any given customer."

However, the rates are likely to be pricey enough to discourage all but the biggest companies with substantial numbers of NT4 servers.

Microsoft was told by customers that the price it had initially planned to charge for the service was too high, Houston said. One group who expressed concern was BITS, which represents large financial service companies, many of which have large NT4 Server installations.

Earlier this week, BITS and Microsoft put out a joint press release praising the company's NT4 Server support. That move led some observers to assume that Microsoft was once again extending standard support for the OS for all customers.

However, Houston stressed that Microsoft is not changing the support period for NT4 Server, nor is it offering any special pricing to BITS.

Under the custom service, the software maker will consult with individual companies on fixes and problems, rather than have a program set up to deal with them. Microsoft did not disclose pricing for the custom service, but said it would charge a fixed fee for the length of the contract, which could extend as far as December 2006.

But the company is taking pains to ensure that customers don't see custom support as a way to keep using NT4 Server indefinitely. Clients that sign up for the service are required first to work with Microsoft to develop a migration plan, Houston said.

"We're targeting this custom support for NT4 to give customers the time they need to migrate off of NT4 to our newer operating systems," Houston said. "I think we've been very up front with customers in our belief that NT4 has reached that architectural point of obsolescence."

Ina Fried writes for CNET News.com