Fifty-Six Percent of Corporate Web Applications Target Windows NT Server

NEW YORK, Dec. 9, 1997 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that demand for Web applications, the Microsoft® BackOffice® family and Internet deployments is helping to drive unprecedented sales of licenses of the Microsoft Windows NT® Server operating system version 4.0.

One of the fastest-growing segments for implementation of Windows NT Server 4.0 is as a Web application platform on corporate intranets. According to a recent report issued by IntelliQuest, 56 percent of organizations building Web applications on their corporate intranets plan to deploy Windows NT Server 4.0. This figure compares with only 8 percent of organizations that plan to deploy Web applications on UNIX. According to the latest sales report from International Data Corp., shipments of Windows NT Server have more than doubled in the first half of 1997 compared to the first half of 1996.

Enterprise Customer Demand

Enterprise customers deploying intranet or external Web site solutions on Windows NT Server 4.0 with Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 include Arthur Andersen LLP, Compaq Computer Corp., Cox Communications, Dayton Hudson Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Harper Collins Publishers Inc., MCI Telecommunications Inc., Merrill Lynch, Revlon, Solectron Corp., United Airlines and other leading Fortune 100 companies.

“Customer demand and reseller support for Windows NT Server 4.0 have fueled huge sales for us,” said Tracy Robbins, vice president of software at Merisel. “In fact, there has been a tremendous growth in the number of resellers purchasing licenses from us in the past year. With the refresh of Windows NT Server and the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, we expect even stronger sales of Windows NT Server 4.0 licenses moving forward.”

Web Applications Moving to Windows NT Server 4.0

Industry support for the Web services in Windows NT Server 4.0 has increased dramatically in the past six months. At the Fall Professional Developers Conference, more than 4,500 developers indicated they are building applications with IIS, Microsoft Transaction Server and Microsoft Message Queue Server, citing the ease of application development.

“By developing our application using Windows® DNA, we were able to seize a critical market window in customer interaction systems,” said Eric Carlson, chief technology officer at Silknet Software. “Microsoft listens to the needs of independent software vendors. Unlike Netscape and UNIX-based environments, Windows NT Server and the Option Pack integrate the entire platform and application services. This robust architecture enabled us to cut development time by one-third and concentrate on solving the business problem, not making pieces from different vendors work together.”

Demand for Windows NT Server on the Internet

According to the December report from Netcraft, a U.K.-based consultancy (http://www.netcraft.com/) , the number of Web sites running Windows NT Server with IIS has grown to more than 360,000 – more than twice the total number of sites running Netscape Web server software. More than 6,000 Web sites are already running Windows NT Server 4.0 with IIS 4.0, which was released only a week ago. Some of the large Web sites migrating to this new

solution include ABCNEWS.com, Comcast QVC, ESPN SportsZone, and the official sites for the NASCAR, NBA, NFL and WNBA.

Windows NT Server 4.0 with the Option Pack has also seen huge demand with Internet service providers (ISPs). Some of the national ISPs that have recently announced Web hosting services on Windows NT Server 4.0 and IIS 4.0 include Bell Atlantic, Bell South, CompuServe Inc.’s SpryNet unit, DIGEX Inc., Digital Foundry Inc., GTE Internetworking, MCI, NetConcept Inc., Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., USWeb Corp., UUNET Technologies Inc. and Verio Inc.

“Our business requires us to quickly develop Web sites that are interactive and easy to maintain and scale,” said Tushar Patel, vice president and managing director of USWeb Corp.’s Chicago Practice. “This is difficult and expensive to do on UNIX with Netscape or Apache. The Microsoft platform lets us easily develop dynamic Web sites. We are in the process of migrating all our Web servers and customer sites to Windows NT Server 4.0 with IIS 4.0.”

Released last week, the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack provides new Web and application services for Windows NT Server 4.0, including IIS 4.0, Microsoft Transaction Server 2.0 and Microsoft Message Queue Server.

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EDITORS’ NOTE, December 30, 2004
— This page has been revised since original publication.

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