REDMOND, Wash., July 26, 1999 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the Microsoft® Visual Studio® Integration Program (VSIP), which offers independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors the opportunity to tightly integrate their products with the award-winning Microsoft Visual Studio development system suite of tools. The VSIP is designed to provide unprecedented Visual Studio integration opportunities and flexibility to participating companies, giving customers a broader choice of solutions, improved compatibility and consistent, deeper product integration that will result in improved productivity among the shared customer bases. The VSIP offers three main benefits to participants: technical resources, including software development kits (SDKs) and detailed Visual Studio environment documentation as well as technical information; co-marketing resources, including the right to display the Visual Studio logo for collateral and product boxes and Web promotions; and detailed disclosure on future Microsoft technologies. Participating companies include Attachmate Corp., The Baan Co., Compuware Corp., Continuus Software Corp., Geodesic Systems, InstallShield, Intel Corp., Liant Software Corp., MERANT, Mercury Interactive Corp., Mortice Kern Systems Inc. (MKS), National Instruments, POET Software Corp., Raleigh Group International (RGI), Rational Software Corp., Riverton Software Corp., Seagate Software, Stingray/Rogue Wave Software, SuperNova, Tower Technology Corp. and Wall Data Inc.
“The VSIP gives ISVs the opportunity to deliver innovative enterprise tools that help companies gain a business advantage through better distributed solution support, better life-cycle management and faster application turnaround while reducing complexity and cost of ownership,”
said Paul Maritz, group vice president of the Developer Group at Microsoft.
“The VSIP enables ISVs to take advantage of Microsoft’s strength in delivering intuitive and scalable technologies.”
Because of the significant overlap among developers using ERP vendor-specific development environments and Visual Studio, these vendors can greatly increase the value of their development tools by integrating closely into Visual Studio.
“This integration will allow shared developers to have a consistent user experience as well as increase their productivity,”
said Tom Button, product unit manager, Visual Studio.
Microsoft and Participating Companies Work to Deliver Business Value to Customers
As part of the cooperative effort between Microsoft and companies participating in the VSIP, Microsoft plans to share technical information on integration with Visual Studio and provide marketing support for value-added products. In addition, participating companies will receive information on future Visual Studio technologies and technical support from Microsoft’s Product Support Services. VSIP companies will also have an option to redistribute Visual Studio as part of their own products, enabling companies to be a
“one-stop shop”
for their customers.
Corporate Customers Gain More Choices
Visual Studio is attracting widespread support from tools vendors and corporate customers because it is a full suite of tools for building scalable enterprise solutions. Integration of these tools with middle-tier application services based on the Microsoft Windows NT® operating system enables the flexibility and scalability of the Windows® Distributed interNet Applications (Windows DNA) architecture. By enabling third-party tools vendors to fully integrate with Visual Studio, corporate customers will enjoy a richer experience and will be more productive in building enterprise Web applications.
More information on the Visual Studio Integration Program can be requested via e-mail from [email protected].
Microsoft Visual Studio development system version 6.0 includes a complete suite of award-winning tools for building scalable enterprise solutions. These tools provide comprehensive support for building all aspects of a multitier solution based on the Windows DNA architecture. This includes building cross-platform Web applications, as well as client/server Windows operating system based applications.
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.
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Visual Studio Integration Program Quote Sheet
July 1999
The Baan Co.
“The Visual Studio Integration Program will enable Baan Co. to provide customers in enterprise-focused development with a richer and more productive environment. Baan continues to take advantage of Microsoft foundation technology to support our own ability to deliver solutions that are low cost and easy to implement and use.”
– Rocky Gunderson
Senior Vice President,
Product Management
The Baan Co.
Compuware Corp.
“Compuware is pleased to work with Microsoft in the Visual Studio Integration Program. This program will extend the rich functionality of the Compuware tools and provide greater value to our customers as they strive to meet the growing demand to accelerate software development.”
– Joe Wurm
Vice President and Lab Director
NuMega Product Line
Compuware
Continuus Software Corp.
“By participating in Microsoft’s Visual Studio Integration Program, we are enhancing our ability to meet our customers’ needs for improved delivery of mission-critical Web based applications and systems. The program makes it easy for customers to identify the independent software vendors, system integrators and applications developers that have integrated their applications services and solutions with Visual Studio, ensuring that they get optimum performance compatibility.”
– Bill Philbin
Vice President
Marketing
Continuus Software
Geodesic
“Geodesic is very pleased to be part of the Microsoft VSIP. To help support the full life cycle development capabilities of Visual Studio, we have ported Great Circle’s memory debugging and run-time memory management libraries to Windows to provide performance and reliability benefits. The VSIP provides a way to fully integrate our technologies for the best-of-breed development facilities.”
– Dave Bunker
Vice President of Business Development
Geodesic Systems
InstallShield Software Corp.
“InstallShield is always striving to provide the best installation development environment for corporate and ISV developers. By offering tight integration with the Visual Studio suite of tools, developers can be assured that InstallShield products provide the easiest path to creating bullet-proof installation packages for trouble-free deployment of their applications across all Windows platforms.”
– Brian Hall
Vice President of Marketing
InstallShield Software Corp.
Liant Software Corp.
“Our participation in Microsoft VSIP allows us to satisfy our customers’ demand for open interoperation of development tools and seamless integration of Visual Studio with our flagship application development product, RM/COBOL. This underscores Liant’s commitment to enable component-based business application development without the unnecessary pain of wholesale replacement of finely tuned business rules.”
– John Bradley
CEO
Liant Software Corp.
MERANT
“Time to market is one of our customer’s greatest concerns when developing e-business applications. By working with Microsoft through the VSIP, we can provide our mutual customers with richer enterprise application development environments to address the challenges of a global e-business economy.”
– Rick Van Hoesen
Senior Vice President and
General Manager
MERANT Micro Focus
Mercury Interactive Corp.
“Customers of Microsoft Visual Studio are building and deploying enterprise-class electronic-commerce applications. With the competition just a mouse-click away, application performance, scalability and reliability are more critical than ever, making testing an invaluable part of the development process. Our participation in the Visual Studio Integration Program will enhance our existing support for the Microsoft Visual Basic® and Visual Studio development systems by allowing us to tighten the integration between our testing solutions and Visual Studio.”
– Jayaram Bhat
Vice President of Marketing
Mercury Interactive
Mortice Kern Systems Inc. (MKS)
“As a participant in the Microsoft Visual Studio Integration Program, we’re empowered to closely integrate our leading UNIX- and Windows-based Co-Existence products, including NuTCRACKER Professional, with the industry standard development platform. We’re making it easier for enterprise customers to make optimal use of their legacy UNIX investments and Windows DNA into applications that are deployable on UNIX, Windows and the Web through our growing relationship with Microsoft.”
– Pat Higbie
Chief Evangelist
MKS
National Instruments
“Through this relationship, National Instruments will bring new levels of measurement and automation technology to users of Visual Basic and Visual C++® while expanding our longtime working relationship with Microsoft.”
– James Truchard,
President and CEO
National Instruments
POET Software Corp.
“ISVs and developers are faced with an enormous array of choices. By participating in the VSIP and integrating our product into the familiar environment of Visual Studio, we hope to make those choices a little easier. Developers will find a winning combination in Microsoft and POET.”
– Dirk Bartels
President and Chief Executive
POET Software
Raleigh Group International (RGI)
“RGI’s business strategy has always been focused on extending and complementing Microsoft developer tools. Collaborating with Microsoft in the Visual Studio Integration Program will provide us with a distinct competitive advantage by allowing us to take even greater advantage of the extensibility of Microsoft Visual Studio.”
– August Turak
CEO
Raleigh Group International
Rational Software Corp.
“Rational is pleased to expand our already strong alliance with Microsoft by participating in the VSIP program. We intend to take advantage of the opportunities it offers to deliver an even better solution for our mutual customers.”
– Eric Schurr
Vice President and General Manager Corporate Marketing and Suite Products
Rational Software
Riverton Software Corp.
“Riverton Software is pleased to become a participant in the Microsoft Visual Studio Integration Program. HOW, our component development and deployment environment, is designed to be tightly coupled with Visual Studio. Membership in this program ensures that our customers will continue to take full advantage of the most advanced Internet application development features in Visual Studio.”
– Bob Gleason
President and CEO
Riverton Software
Seagate Software
“The Microsoft VSIP is in line with Seagate Software’s vision of developing products that offer superior information delivery and analysis along with deeper product integration to customers. With Seagate Crystal Reports, we are committed to making the job of developing simple and sophisticated reports easier and more intuitive for the development community using Microsoft Visual Studio, offering them the best in reporting technology.”
– Tony Wind
Vice President of Product Management
Seagate Software
Stingray/Rogue Wave Software
“The Microsoft VSIP has been a focal point for our Stingray division in its development efforts. Because of enhanced integration features, our customers will find it easier than ever to use our tools within the Visual C++ environment. Integrating our tools with Visual Studio is just one of the significant ways we support Windows DNA.”
– Peter J. Weyman
Vice President and General Manager
Rogue Wave Software Inc.
SuperNova
“Microsoft Visual Studio combined with SuperNova Process Integrator offers our customers the best of both worlds – the extensive interoperability of SuperNova tools and the familiar look of Microsoft Visual Studio.”
– Meyar Sheik
Vice President,
Worldwide Marketing, Strategic Alliances
SuperNova
Tower Technology Corp.
“Visual Studio is the preferred development environment of TowerJ customers on Windows. Microsoft really understands how programmers think, and Visual Studio reflects this by providing excellent support for managing complex projects. The Visual C++ environment strongly influenced our own TowerJ high-performance deployment environment for Java-based applications, and so this integration is a natural. Tower looks forward to utilizing the VSIP to link with Microsoft’s environment as well as the tools from the other program participants.”
– Robert
“Rock”
Howard
CTO
Tower Technology Corp.
Wall Data Inc.
“With Cyberprise Portal, companies are now able to integrate, manage and personalize enterprise and Internet information from virtually any source. With the technology and resources provided through the VSIP, Wall Data is able to provide our customers and partners with increased flexibility to build these online communities quickly and cost effectively.”
– Gretchen O’Hara
Vice President
Cyberprise Partner, Marketing and Development
Wall Data Inc.
