CEO Bill Gates Sees Dramatic Evolution in Corporate Computing Enabled by Internet Technologies
SAN JOSE, Calif., June 13, 1996 — In a worldwide briefing to customers and industry influentials, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and CEO Bill Gates today outlined Microsoft’s strategy to deliver a comprehensive set of products and services that seamlessly integrate desktops, LANs, client-server applications, legacy systems and the public Internet to create dramatically more effective corporate computing systems. Gates also announced a broad set of intranet-related products and previewed future technologies in each of Microsoft’s key product lines.
Today’s briefing was the third major presentation of Microsoft’s strategy for the Internet. The company unveiled its overall Internet strategy and a range of new products in December 1995, then delivered a comprehensive set of technologies and tools for developers in March 1996 at the Microsoft®
Professional Developers Conference – Building Internet Applications. Since December, Microsoft has delivered a wide range of Internet products and technologies across every major product line and focused its worldwide product group to develop products that help customers take advantage of the Internet.
“Six months ago, Microsoft promised the world that it was hard-core about the Internet and since then we’ve delivered innovative products in every major product category,”
Gates said.
“Today, we’re making the same promise to our customers about the intranet.”
Microsoft’s Intranet Strategy
Intranets that integrate a corporation’s computing environment with the Internet can help customers dramatically increase the effectiveness of their business-management systems. Broadly, Microsoft’s strategy is to do the following:
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Seamlessly integrate internal LANs with the Internet to enhance communication between businesses and their customers and partners
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Implement new navigation paradigms pioneered on the Internet into all products to make it easier for users to find, create, analyze and collaborate
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Simplify applications development, deployment and administration to help customers streamline business processes and shorten development cycles
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Integrate new products and Internet technologies with existing infrastructures to enable customers to leverage technology investment and evolve information technology systems smoothly
“Intranets will have an immediate and dramatic impact on businesses over the next few years – but this is just the beginning,”
Gates said.
“By merging the best of the Internet and the best of the PC with customers’ existing computing environment, Microsoft will enable customers to develop a new generation of more powerful, flexible and cost-effective intranet solutions.”
Simon & Schuster, the world’s largest English-language book publisher and a leader in electronic publishing, has been able to easily develop and begin using its corporate intranet by using Microsoft technologies.
“To use an intranet as a full production platform, you need fully integrated tools,”
said Michael Packer, executive vice president of technology systems and operations at Simon & Schuster.
“We believe that these intranet tools from Microsoft will enable Simon & Schuster to operate more efficiently and retain a manageable infrastructure, all the while creating substantially more value for our internal business clients.”
New Products and Technologies for Intranets
Microsoft announced and previewed a range of new products, technologies and services that will enable customers to implement next-generation intranets:
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Microsoft Office. Microsoft previewed Office 97, a new version of its leading suite of desktop applications that will include Web technology to make it easy for business users to create, analyze and publish content on intranets. Microsoft also previewed Microsoft Outlook
™
, an innovative new desktop information management application that helps users organize, communicate and collaborate on intranets. -
Microsoft Windows and Windows NT Workstation . Microsoft previewed the next generation of its Web browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, and the Windows Active Desktop
™technologies. By integrating Microsoft Internet Explorer with the Windows®
operating system, the Active Desktop provides seamless access to information of all types regardless of location. Furthermore, it notifies the user when priority information is updated on an intranet or the Internet. -
Windows NT Server. Windows NT Server 4.0 will add Microsoft FrontPage
™
, Microsoft’s innovative Web publishing and site-management product, and a Search Server for document searching. These features, along with Internet Information Server, the high-performance Web server already incorporated in the product, make Windows NT Server the most capable intranet operating system available, with high performance, security, and ease of use. -
Directory Server. Microsoft demonstrated its next-generation Windows NT Directory Server, designed to seamlessly integrate Internet and intranet environments. The next-generation Directory Server combines the best of DNS (domain name server) and X.500 in a seamless upgrade to Windows NT Server 4.0. The Directory Server will be available for preview in the second half of 1996.
“Microsoft’s new Internet strategy will make the company an important supplier of Internet and Web technology to corporate users,”
said John Rymer, vice president, information group at Giga, a knowledge resource firm for IT decision-making based in Cambridge, Mass.
“The breadth of its product line and its ability to integrate new Internet paradigms with existing systems will make it a leader in the intranet marketplace.”
For additional information on Microsoft’s Intranet Strategy Day briefings and announcements, connect to Microsoft’s Web server at http://microsoft.com/intranet/.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, Windows NT, Outlook and FrontPage are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
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