REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 16, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today announced broad support for the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 platform from leading ISVs in the horizontal and vertical industries. Using the enhanced reliability and scalable features offered by the Windows 2000 platform, ISVs will be able to develop innovative, mission-critical applications in a wide range of solutions for the financial services, e-business, ERP, and manufacturing and engineering industries.
“Windows 2000 supports our continued commitment to providing the best platform for ISVs and systems integrators to develop applications that meet today’s complex business needs,”
said Charles Stevens, vice president of the Business Solutions Group at Microsoft.
“The support we are hearing from leaders like ARGO, Pandesic, PeopleSoft and Autodesk is an important indication that Windows 2000 is addressing business challenges in a broad range of industries and customer segments.”
Financial Services
A recent Windows 2000 benchmark with ARGO Data Resource Corp. has demonstrated the scalability, security and reliability of the new platform. The testing was done with ARGO Enterprise Commerce Server, Compaq ProLiant servers and the Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server applications. The objective was to test the power and scalability of this configuration to handle the high transaction volumes typical of large financial institutions. A loan underwriting center, for instance, can now process more than 140,000 transactions per hour — a rate that is sustainable and that allows for failover processing in a clustered environment with 24×7 operation.
“Windows 2000 breaks a tremendous barrier for high-end server processing for the financial enterprise,”
said Max Martin, president of ARGO.
“ARGO solutions utilizing the Windows 2000 platform offer scalable, high-performance, high-availability applications with the ability to handle heavy transaction volumes, large numbers of users, and a variety of connectivity and interoperability options. The benchmark results demonstrate the ability to deliver an unexcelled level of scalability and extraordinary throughput that is particularly vital for call centers, loan underwriting and the demanding requirements of the Internet.”
E-Business
Pandesic LLC powers over 100 e-businesses, including the online stores for adidas and ARTISTdirect. The award-winning end-to-end Pandesic® e-business solution, built on the Microsoft platform, manages diverse online business models including retail, consumer direct, events, multistores, distribution and more with the purpose-built e-commerce infrastructure.
“To do e-commerce right, a company needs to have a solution that grows and scales at the same pace as its success,”
said Harold Hughes, CEO of Pandesic, the largest e-commerce ASP.
“At Pandesic, we give our customers lifetime upgrades to keep them competitive and current in the market. Windows 2000 is the next milestone in the ever-evolving world of e-business and will be delivered to our more than 100 customers as part of our ‘evergreen’ promise.”
ERP and E-Business
PeopleSoft Inc. is a world leader in enterprise application software. It provides e-business applications for customer relationship management, human resource management, financials and supply chain, along with a range of industry-specific solutions. The integration of PeopleSoft’s enterprise applications with Microsoft Windows 2000 Server provides customers with a comprehensive, highly scalable solution.
“PeopleSoft’s support for Windows 2000 builds on a 10-year global relationship with Microsoft,”
said Peter Gassner, vice president and general manager of PeopleTools, PeopleSoft’s technology division.
“Our relationship around Microsoft’s latest platform will enable us to offer the most scalable, high-performance solutions for e-business available today.”
Manufacturing and Engineering
Autodesk Inc. is a world-leading design and digital content-creation resource. The company provides software and Internet portal services to help customers drive business through the power of design. Autodesk has more than 4 million customers in over 150 countries creating for industries including architectural design, mechanical design, mapping, film and video production, video game development, and Web content development.
“Autodesk has always selected the Microsoft platform as a foundation on which to build our world-class design solutions. That’s why we have chosen to adopt the Windows 2000 Application Specification as the development standard for all our products,”
said Scott Borduin, vice president and chief technology officer at Autodesk.
“With Windows 2000 certified products from Autodesk, our customers will enjoy the highest level of performance, reliability and manageability.”
Other Industry Partners
Several other leading industry partners announced support for Windows 2000, including Parametric Technology Corp., Datasweep Inc., SolidWorks Corp., Motiva, ANSYS Inc., Honeywell, Commerx (developers of PlasticsNet.com), FileNET Corp., Unigraphics Solutions, Prophet 21, Yantra and Spacelabs Medical Inc. These ISVs have committed to implementing Windows 2000 with their business applications so their customers can reap the benefits of faster, improved decision-making and lower total cost of ownership throughout the enterprise.
Availability
General availability of Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server is scheduled to begin Feb. 17, 2000. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is expected to be available approximately 90 to 120 days later.
About Windows 2000 and Microsoft
Windows 2000 is an ideal platform for the next generation of business computing and addresses the full range of customers’ computing needs, from laptops and desktops to high-end clustered servers. The operating system helps organizations Internet-enable their business with a reliable, manageable infrastructure that is optimized for existing and emerging hardware. More information about Windows 2000 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/ .
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
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The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
For online information about Windows 2000:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/w2k/default.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/default.asp
First customers:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/oct99/rewardspr.asp
Business Internet customers:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2000/jan00/b2becommpr.asp
Financial services customers:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Dec99/LeadersPR.asp
Dot-coms:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2000/01-12windows2000.htm
Reliability:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/12-22vegas.htm
E-Commerce:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/12-09w2k.htm
Reliability and scalability:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/11-23homelife.htm
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
