by Monte Enbysk

"It's been fun to come to work every day," he said. "There's an amazing quality of people on this team."

About 4,000 program managers, developers, testers, and others helped get Windows 2000 ready to ship on Dec. 15, and every one of them is a hero, said Iain McDonald, the Windows 2000 project manager.

"We probably couldn't have shipped this product without having the ITG [internal] rollout," he said. "By having Microsoft on it, we could find out how well it runs in a corporate environment. "We've gotten great support from the ITG guys. That's Microsoft choosing to put its business on the line for the greater good of Windows 2000."

"This is a phenomenal milestone for everybody here, for the company, and for the entire industry," company Chairman Bill Gates told the thousands at the ship party. "Windows 2000 is a product we can be incredibly proud of.

"This is not the end of the road," Gates added, "but it is probably the most exciting point in the journey that we've ever had."

Comments from other team leaders:

• S. Somasegar, general manager of Windows Services: "This is a historic moment. It's been a long road, and a lot of people worked on this. This is the biggest release we ever put out and the highest quality."

• Iain McDonald, Windows 2000 project manager: "You don't get a chance to ship something like this very often in your career. This is the best product Microsoft has ever released, no question."

• Monte Christensen, test manager, Windows 2000 Advanced Server: "We had some pretty lofty goals for this product. I feel we accomplished just about all of them."

• Arden White, Windows 2000 build lab manager: "We're anxiously awaiting our product being for sale and getting feedback from customers. We've gotten a lot of feedback so far [from beta versions] that has been extremely positive."

• Sharon Montgomery, Windows 2000 program manager: "This is the biggest event of my life. It's been a great team effort, and there has been a lot of camaraderie and good relationships built."