32-bit Server editions of the next version of Windows 2000, code-named "Whistler," will offer a "headless" option that allows the product to more closely compete with embedded and Unix-based solutions. Headless servers operate without a local display, keyboard, or mouse, and management is done remotely over a network. To facilitate this feat, Microsoft is working with hardware makers to create BIOS support for headless servers. A first generation version of the technology will actually debut this summer in a software kit Microsoft is supplying to PC makers. But the release of Whistler next spring will offer solution providers with the first true Windows headless server.

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