NEW YORK, Dec. 10, 1997 — This week at Fall Internet World ’97, Microsoft Corp.’s Partner Pavilion will include Microsoft® Site Builder Network members such as Judd’s Inc., Digital Foundry Inc. and The Axis Media Group. These companies and others have turned to the Windows NT® Server operating system version 4.0 and Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 to provide cost-effective Web-based solutions for their customers.
Judd’s
When Judd’s Inc. was hired to build a promotional Web site for the premiere of singer Reba McEntire’s latest single, the business need was simple. Judd’s worked with Media Revolution, another Site Builder Network member, to help design the site (http://www.reba.com/) . The company turned to Microsoft technologies, including Windows NT Server 4.0 with IIS 4.0, to provide a comprehensive, cost-effective solution. The result was a project with low overhead and great performance.
“Windows NT Server with IIS was a natural selection for the cooperative development of the site by Judd’s and Media Revolution,” said Noel Jerke, director of Judd’s OnLine. “Everything in the current version, including integration with Microsoft Exchange Server and complete support for e-commerce with Site Server Enterprise Edition, was developed with an eye toward the enhanced membership, transaction and streaming media capabilities of
Windows NT Server and IIS 4.0.”
Martha Stewart also chose Judd’s to build her new Martha Stewart Living Web site (http://www.marthastewart.com/) . The site includes Stewart’s famous calendar, which details her day-to-day activities, video clips of upcoming television programs and an online store for purchasing items from Martha by Mail.
The site relies on a complete solution based on the Microsoft BackOffice® family, including Windows NT Server, IIS 3.0, Site Server Enterprise Edition, Exchange 5.5 and Microsoft SQL Server
™
. Commerce Server, a key feature of Site Server Enterprise Edition, enables secure transactions for those who want to purchase goods from the Martha by Mail section. Judd’s is in the process of upgrading the Martha Stewart site to IIS 4.0.
“IIS 4.0 and Site Server Enterprise Edition, integrated with the incredible scalability of Microsoft BackOffice and the rich features of Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 for Web-integrated messaging, weren’t just the best choice, they were the only choice that made sense,” said Richard Warren, vice president of Judd’s.
Digital Foundry
Digital Foundry Inc. has also built cutting-edge solutions for its customers. As a premier source of technical information for developers using the Visual Basic® and Visual C++® development systems and Java, Fawcette Technical Publications demanded high performance for its newly launched DevX site (http://www.devx.com/) .
DevX is built on the Microsoft Windows NT Server platform using IIS 4.0 and Microsoft SQL Server as its database. Additional community-building functionality is enabled by the membership, personalization, chat and news services of the Microsoft Commercial Internet System (MCIS).
“The Digital Foundry specializes in developing Web applications using IIS 4.0 and MCIS on Windows NT,” said Bob Fraik, president of Digital Foundry. “We are very pleased with the performance, scalability and functionality we were able to achieve on the DevX site with these technologies. We feel IIS 4.0 is significant leap forward in Web server technology. IIS 4.0 is the first Web server to provide a sophisticated integrated application substrate, allowing us to focus on developing solutions.”
TravelRes Direct also hired Digital Foundry to build a Web site that offers consumers the ability to plan all aspects of their vacation package, including air and ground travel and accommodations. The key to making this solution work was seamless integration with an existing mission-critical database. Active Server components provide communications with a sophisticated travel consolidation and reservation system operated by Atlas Travel Technology. Hosting the site on Windows NT Server 4.0 and IIS 4.0 made it easy to integrate the necessary data to run this online business.
The Axis Media Group
The Axis Media Group recently developed an Internet, intranet and extranet solution for a major Australian financial services company. The company’s challenge was to ensure that the application environment was flexible enough to allow the company to draw information from a wide variety of internal sources, secure enough to manage the proper control of users and their rights, and adaptable enough to support a changing technology environment.
“After looking through the market for a suitable solution, our technologists were unanimous – Windows NT Server 4.0 with IIS 4.0 provided all of the features required and more,” said Richard Lord, managing director of The Axis Media Group. “With IIS 4.0, we have been able to make management of information for distribution through the Internet an integral part of the business process – the information is published to the Internet as it is created. This means that our clients can get on with managing their business, rather than managing the technology.”
The Microsoft Site Builder Network is a complete online resource and membership program for the Web development community. For more information, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/sitebuilder/ .
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