LONG BEACH, Calif., June 20, 2001 — Today at Streaming Media West 2001, Microsoft Corp. announced Microsoft® Producer, the first comprehensive tool that enables enterprise media professionals and everyday business users to create, edit and publish rich media presentations. Rich media presentations combine the power of Windows Media™ audio and video, HTML and PowerPoint® slide presentations to take the communication of ideas and information to a new level. Microsoft also delivered today a Technology Preview of Microsoft Producer, designed for evaluation by content developers and technical evaluators. Microsoft Producer, a companion tool for Office XP users, is a milestone in enabling broader use of digital media to rapidly deliver critical information throughout large organizations right to the PC desktop.
“While enterprise streaming has grown dramatically, we have just scratched the surface on how streamed digital media communication will impact sharing information and training,”
said Steve Vonder Haar, streaming media analyst at The Yankee Group.
“Microsoft Producer breaks new ground to solve a critical blocking issue for the growth of digital media in large organizations — easy content creation and publishing.”
“Customers have asked us for easier ways to create quality communications and training content as they expand the use of digital media in their organizations,” said Will Poole, vice president, Windows® Digital Media Division at Microsoft.
“We designed Microsoft Producer to meet this need and offer a dynamic new way to communicate that increases productivity and reduces costs at the same time.”
Unlocking the Power of Digital Media for Organizations
Corporate use of streaming media has doubled in the past 18 months. But one of the key obstacles in advancing broader adoption of digital media in organizations has been the lack of easy tools for creating content. This is in part because creating content up until today has required specialized knowledge and the ability to juggle a disparate set of tools to author and combine varied elements such as digital audio and video, PowerPoint slides, images and HTML. Microsoft Producer makes it easy for any media professional or business user to create, edit, preview and publish rich digital media presentations anywhere.
“There are no other tools like it right now,”
said Cindy Bandula-Yates, manager of Solution Services at PPG Industries.
“Microsoft Producer will be an excellent vehicle to change traditional communications.”
Media professionals, training specialists, sales and marketing professionals, and business users of all kinds can now create engaging external and internal digital media marketing communications, online training, on-demand companywide executive broadcasts, and published archives of live presentations. Then all of these can be quickly published with the click of a button to intranet sites, the Internet or a CD. Microsoft Producer allows users to easily do the following:
Create and Edit Dramatic Multimedia Presentations
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Now combine and synchronize audio, video, PowerPoint slides and images all in one place with one tool.
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Easy-to-use Wizards make it easy for any PowerPoint user to learn how to
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Quickly develop a rich media presentation
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Record their own audio and video narration
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Synchronize their audio and video with their PowerPoint slides
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Easy video capture features such as automatic
“shot detection”
of imported digital video make it easy to arrange and edit video clips as well as enable
“live”
events or content stored on videotape to be used to generate high-quality rich media presentations.
Preview and Format Presentations Quickly and Easily
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Producer’s Preview tab provides users with an intuitive way to view their presentation before publishing.
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A variety of templates for Web page layouts can be easily selected and changed dynamically throughout a presentation to create an engaging playback experience.
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A Table of Contents can be automatically created when importing PowerPoint presentations. Users can easily add or delete Table of Contents entries as they wish.
Publish Rich -Media Presentations Virtually Anywhere
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Once users have completed their presentation, they can publish it anywhere with the Publish Wizard. They can place their rich media presentation on a CD, a corporate intranet, the Internet or their Local Area Network with a click of a button.
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Easy to administrate publishing rules help IT administrators and service providers customize and control standard publishing points for rich media presentations across a network.
Availability
Microsoft Producer is a companion tool for Office XP and is available for download today ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ ) as a technology preview for technical evaluators. The final release of Microsoft Producer is scheduled to be available for all Office XP users by the end of this year. Final pricing has not been determined.
About Windows Media
Windows Media is the leading digital media platform, providing unmatched audio and video quality to consumers, content providers, solution providers, software developers and corporations. Windows Media offers the industry’s only integrated rights-management solution and the most scalable and reliable streaming technology tested by independent labs. Windows
Media Technologies includes Windows Media Player for consumers, Windows Media Services for servers, Windows Media Tools for content creation, and the Windows Media Software Development Kit (SDK) for software developers. Windows Media Player, available in 26 languages, is the fastest-growing media player. More information about Windows Media can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/ .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies 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 Media, PowerPoint and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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