REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 1, 1997 — To mark the availability of the newest version of Microsoft® FrontPage® , the world’s best-selling Web creation and management tool, Microsoft Corp. today announced that 12 leading Internet service providers (ISPs) will offer Web site hosting incentives to users of FrontPage 98. The promotions range from 60 days of free Web hosting to savings of up to $500 on setup and installation fees (some offer restrictions apply).
Together, FrontPage 98 and these providers take users from start to finish with a complete Web site creation, management and hosting solution. This solution enables team members to easily update their Web site from local and remote locations in a collaborative, multiuser authoring environment. The 12 ISPs serve a broad range of customers, from home users to small and medium-sized businesses: AT & T Web Site Services, Bell Atlantic Internet Solutions, Best Internet Communications, GTE Internetworking, Hiway Technologies Inc., HostAmerica, MCI Telecommunications Inc., MindSpring Enterprises Inc., NETCOM Web Hosting Services, PSINet Inc., UUNET Technologies Inc. and Verio Inc.
Bell Atlantic, a worldwide leader in providing Internet services, formed Bell Atlantic Internet Solutions last year to meet the needs of its most demanding small business customers. “We see a trend in Web development toward the creation and management of Web sites by team members who are separated both by geographical and organizational boundaries,” said Pete Miller, director of Web services for Bell Atlantic Internet Solutions. “More and more of our hosting clients are asking us to support Web authoring by dispersed teams. FrontPage is a well-designed Web creation and management tool that enables us to meet this demand. In fact, Bell Atlantic is offering FrontPage 98 hosting customers a limited-time promotion of 90 days of free Web site hosting, plus $200 off our usual setup and installation fees, a $425 value.”
Hiway Technologies hosts more than 40,000 Web sites, making it one of the largest hosting providers in the world. “Our entire business is based on providing small and medium-sized businesses with an easy, reliable Web hosting solution at an affordable price,” said Steve Umberger, senior vice president of marketing for Hiway Technologies. “FrontPage is the best Web creation and management tool, and combined with Hiway’s 60-day free FrontPage 98 Web site hosting offer, we provide users with leading-edge service and incredible value.”
Ease of Use Drives Unparalleled ISP Support
“FrontPage has always made it easy for both new users and Web professionals to create and manage a Web site,” said Chris Peters, vice president of the Web authoring unit at Microsoft. “With FrontPage 98, we’re extending easy site creation and management to include effortless site publishing. Of course, high-quality Web hosting is paramount to our efforts in this area. We’re delighted to see so many leading Internet service providers offer FrontPage 98 users special promotions on their hosting services.”
The 12 companies announcing FrontPage promotions are joined by more than 500 other registered Web Presence Providers that fully support the FrontPage server extensions. While the extensions are not required for hosting a Web site created with FrontPage, they give users the power to add a rich subset of advanced FrontPage functionality while eliminating the need for them to have any knowledge of programming. In addition to supporting remote, multiuser authoring, the extensions let users easily add full text search, site hit counters, discussion groups and forms to their Web sites. Users can find a list of registered FrontPage Web Presence Providers online at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ . Providers interested in participating in the Web Presence Provider program can immediately register online at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/wpp/register.htm.
FrontPage 98 Now Available at Retail
FrontPage debuted in 1995 as the first creation and management tool to enter the Web site publishing category. Today, two years and four versions later, FrontPage continues to define the category with intelligent design assistance, expanded site management and support for the latest Web technologies including Java, Dynamic HTML, Channel Definition Format and Cascading Style Sheets.
Microsoft FrontPage 98 is available today for the same approximate promotional price as the previous version: $149 for new users ($109 for Office users after a $40 mail-in rebate). (Some restrictions apply to both offers – see products for offer details.) Qualified users of previous retail versions of FrontPage can upgrade for approximately $54.95. A new version of Microsoft Image Composer is included, as well as the Personal Web Server and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0. As with previous versions, Microsoft FrontPage 98 is available in six languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Italian and Spanish. Microsoft FrontPage 98 Web site creation and management tool runs on the Windows® 95 and Windows NT® operating systems. Computer users worldwide can obtain information about Microsoft FrontPage at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ and about other Microsoft products at the company’s World Wide Web home page at http://www.microsoft.com/ .
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