MIAMI, Dec. 8, 1999 — Today at the Bank Administration Institute’s Retail Delivery ’99 Conference, Microsoft Corp. showcased customer and industry support for the forthcoming Microsoft® Windows® 2000 operating system, including plans for migration by financial services companies.
Windows 2000 will address key industry challenges by providing customers with an easy way to Internet-enable their business using integrated Web application services, increased scalability and industry-standard security.
“The financial services industry has always invested in the world’s leading technologies to give them the edge they need to compete,”
said Bill Hartnett, director of financial services for Microsoft.
”
Windows 2000 is the platform that is enabling a new generation of solutions, from e-commerce to knowledge management. The support we are hearing from leaders such as Financialware, n Front, Software Dynamics, Reuters Group and Compaq is an important indication that Windows 2000 is addressing business challenges in the financial services industry.”
Financial Services Customers and Vendors Experience Benefits of Windows 2000
Financialware Inc. specializes in check and document imaging for banks, credit unions, and savings and loans. The company’s transaction imaging system was the first to receive the Microsoft Designed for BackOffice® award.
“Our customers depend on us,”
said Charles G. Myers, president of Financialware.
“We deliver systems to banks. They have to be easy to understand, but highly competitive. When we started deploying Windows NT® -based solutions in ’95, we knew Microsoft’s investment in development would empower our applications and, in turn, empower our customers. Today, we’re Microsoft BackOffice supporters. Microsoft Windows 2000 continues to give us reason to be. We are in the lab testing now. We are in the boardroom trying to understand the number of ways the 2000 product effort affects our product line. Windows 2000 integrates the Internet, application and networking services in an easier-than-ever to use package. Office 2000 makes more delivery channels easier to reach. We firmly believe deploying the family of 2000 products will be as simple as it has been in previous releases.”
Software Dynamics Inc. (SDI) specializes in the development and implementation of branch automation, call center, customer service and enterprisewide delivery systems for the banking industry. Financial services organizations throughout the world use SDI solutions.
“We are excited about the upcoming introduction of Windows 2000,”
said Tom Shen, president of SDI.
“It provides SDI and our customers with a robust and effective operating environment for the new millennium. It delivers a scalable platform on which we can run the entire ZEUS family of products, from a single client workstation to a multiuser, multichannel server, and from our telephony server to our ZEUS CRM Enterprise Server. We are in the process of qualifying all SDI software for Windows 2000.”
Front Inc. is a leading Internet banking services company that enables small to midsize financial institutions to process financial transactions with their customers via bank-branded Web sites. Front’s comprehensive outsourced service is the fastest way to deliver Internet banking, a key means of attracting and retaining profitable customers.
”
Microsoft products have long been a cornerstone of n Front’s Internet banking solution,”
said Tripp Rackley, chairman and CEO of n Front.
“We are a finalist for Microsoft’s 1999 Best Internet Banking Solution award, and we won the 1997 award in that category. We enthusiastically embrace Windows 2000 as our network operating system of choice and look forward to maintaining our leadership role in Internet banking with Microsoft products.”
Reuters, the world’s leading provider of news and real-time financial data, announced that it will offer compatibility with Windows 2000 on its most popular products by the time the operating system is released.
“Reuters’ customers in financial services are demanding richer information at all hours of the day with zero tolerance for failure,”
said Mike Sayers, chief technology officer for Reuters.
“We believe that our open desktop products running on Windows 2000 will provide that.”
Reuters’ announcement that 3000Xtra and PowerPlus Pro would be ported to Windows 2000 is an important indicator of the broad anticipation for Windows 2000 in the financial services independent software vendor community. Reuters has been one of the participants in Microsoft’s early adopter program and plans to deploy Windows 2000 internally, forecasting that it will have more than 1,000 workstations deployed on Windows 2000 by the time the product is released to manufacturing.
New Services From Compaq and Microsoft
Compaq Computer Corp. and Microsoft have created four new packaged service offerings to assist financial services customers in building powerful applications. The offerings will help financial services developers design, test and deploy applications under Windows 2000. These services include the following:
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Windows DNA for Financial Services (Windows DNAfs) lab. A five-day workshop for developers to learn about Windows DNAfs. Attendees will have a chance to create a key application under the Windows DNAfs framework.
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Architecture review. A strategic-level whiteboard discussion with Microsoft Consulting Services and Compaq consultants to discuss an organization’s current development environment and challenges. The results of the review include recommendations on how Windows DNAfs- and Windows 2000-based technologies can most effectively be implemented in the organization.
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Windows 2000 design and deployment workshop. A five-day workshop that details how to build applications to take advantage of the development infrastructure of Windows 2000 including COM+.
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Windows 2000 scalability testing. A five-day workshop focused on testing large, mission-critical financial services applications, including tests for scalability and performance.
“Financial services customers have asked for enhanced support services to help them adopt new technologies like Windows 2000 into their systems and solutions,”
said Robert Zitofsky, regional practice manager at Compaq.
“As a worldwide prime integrator for Microsoft and the provider who has helped the most early adopters of Windows 2000, we are pleased to offer these services. Our 3,000 certified service delivery professionals and 15,000 Microsoft-trained specialists stand ready to help global companies succeed with Windows 2000 wherever they need to do so. Compaq has long been an intensive user of Microsoft products and by launch date expects to have 20,000 internal users running day-to-day business on the Windows 2000 platform because of its scalability, reliability and enterprise support capabilities.”
About Windows 2000
Windows 2000 will enable the next generation of PC computing by providing customers with the easy way to Internet-enable their business using the integrated Web application services, increased scalability and industry-standard security. Windows 2000 will provide a more reliable platform designed for increased system uptime and a more manageable operating system to lower desktop management costs, and will offer more centralized management for servers. In addition, Windows 2000 will enable knowledge workers to take advantage of new devices.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, Windows, BackOffice and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries/regions.
Other product and company names herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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Financial Services Companies and Vendors to Support Windows 2000
December 1999
“Our Internet and data warehouse products are driven by Microsoft® technology. With Windows® 2000 in conjunction with Microsoft SQL Server TM 7.0, we now have an even more compelling story for large financial services institutions requiring 24×7 uptime on a global basis.”
–Tom Charlton
President
Montclair Financial Technology
”
Microsoft products have long been a cornerstone of n Front’s Internet banking solution. We are a finalist for Microsoft’s 1999 Best Internet Banking Solution award, and we won the 1997 award in that category. We enthusiastically embrace Windows 2000 as our network operating system of choice and look forward to maintaining our leadership role in Internet banking with Microsoft products.”
–Tripp Rackley
Chairman and CEO
n Front Inc.
“Financial Models has found Windows 2000 to have many improvements, especially in the areas of reliability and administration. Migrating FMC’s existing Windows-based applications to Windows 2000 required very few modifications, and we are excited about FMC’s new development taking advantage of Windows 2000 features such as COM+, queueing and clustering.”
–Russell Galvin
Director, Software Development
Financial Models Company Inc.
“Corillian is excited about the capabilities of Windows 2000 for the financial services industry and is glad to be a part of the readiness program. As a partner in Microsoft’s developing technology, we look forward to deploying our Voyager eFinance Application Suite of products on the next phase of the Microsoft Windows NT® platform.”
–Terry Ishida
Chief Technology Officer
Corillian Corp.
“Based on initial testing, we have every reason to believe that Windows 2000 will provide us with a reliable, robust application development platform for the future.”
–Michael Lazarcheck
Senior Vice President
SS & C Technologies Inc.
“FDP Corp.’s sales illustration application FDP/XL has been tested in the Windows 2000 environment since its inception. We have found a minimum of 5 percent to 10 percent increase in performance with no major reprogramming required. We will continually optimize our code and work closely with the final development of Windows 2000, fully supporting this operating system as soon as it is deployed.”
–Beverly Price
Vice President
FDP Corp.
“We have been testing Windows 2000 with our products in our development lab for some time. We are quite satisfied with what we have seen and intend to complete qualification when the new OS is released. We are excited about the new features and technology that we can integrate with ZEUS to deliver new and better benefits to our customers.”
–Bob Pill
Vice President and Chief Technologist
Software Dynamics Inc.
“Microsoft provides the underlying technology, allowing us to harness the power of information and do extraordinary things for our financial services customers around the world. Our new enterprise wealth management system, i-Wealthview, is designed exclusively for the Microsoft platform, enabling large, global financial institutions to increase customer acquisition, retention and profitability. We acknowledge Windows 2000 as a new de facto standard client/server operating system for the converging financial services industry.”
–Mike Cardiff
President and CEO
Prologic Corp.
“Our customers depend on us. We deliver systems to banks. They have to be easy to understand, but highly competitive. When we started deploying Windows NT-based solutions in ’95, we knew Microsoft’s investment in development would empower our applications and, in turn, empower our customers. Today, we’re Microsoft BackOffice® supporters. Microsoft Windows 2000 continues to give us reason to be. We are in the lab testing now. We are in the boardroom trying to understand the number of ways the 2000 product effort affects our product line. Windows 2000 integrates the Internet, application and networking services in an easier-than-ever to use package. Office 2000 makes more delivery channels easier to reach. We firmly believe deploying the family of 2000 products will be as simple as it has been in previous releases.”
–Charles G. Myers
President
Financialware Inc.
