REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 8, 1997 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that, over the past eight months, the number of applications for Microsoft® Windows NT® Directory Services has expanded by 325 percent, from 130 to more than 550, representing a broad choice for customers. In addition, new data from a recent Integrity Market Services study showed that more than 80 percent of enterprise customers using the Windows NT Server network operating system are using its integrated Windows NT Directory Services to manage and maintain their networked environments.
This data clearly indicates that Windows NT Server is the platform of choice for customers and developers. Customers can count on the integrated directory service and broad choice of applications to continue with the next generation of Windows NT Server. Microsoft released beta 1 of Windows NT Server 5.0 with Active Directory last month at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, attended by more than 6,200 developers. More than 70 percent of developers surveyed at the conference said they plan to build applications within the next year based on Windows NT Server 5.0 and Active Directory.
“We are extremely pleased by the overwhelming adoption rate of Windows NT Server 4.0,” said Jim Allchin, senior vice president, personal and business systems group at Microsoft. “By building their applications on Windows NT Directory Services now, developers are providing customers with rich, integrated solutions that pave the way for Windows NT Server 5.0 and Active Directory.”
To help spur further development of directory-integrated applications, Microsoft released the Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) in February 1997. This high-level API set is the native API for the Active Directory in Windows NT Server 5.0, a hierarchical extensible directory service that supports key open industry-standard protocols including DNS and LDAP. ADSI allows developers to write applications that are integrated with Windows NT 4.0 Directory Services, which means that developers do less work and have richer applications that will automatically work with Windows NT Server 5.0.
“The key to our success on the Windows NT Server platform is our ability to easily integrate into Windows NT Directory Services,” said Leen van der Maas, director, technology development of Baan. “This has allowed us to develop our applications much more quickly and easily, getting our products to market faster and ahead of our competition.”
For more information on Windows NT Server 4.0 and Microsoft’s directory service strategy, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/ .
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