SAN FRANCISCO, March 12, 1996 — Fourteen development tool companies today announced support for Microsoft®
ActiveX
™
Technologies, a set of APIs that enables a new generation of active content for the Internet. These tools will let developers build innovative applications for the Internet and corporate intranets as well as create rich Web-based content.
Tool vendors announcing support for the ActiveX Technologies are Blue Sky Software, Borland International Inc., Brooklyn North Software Works Inc., Cerebral Systems Development Corp., hip communications inc., InContext Systems, Mystic River Software Inc., Nesbitt Software, NuMega Technologies Inc., Powersoft Corp., Quarterdeck Corp. Inc., SoftQuad Inc., Statute Technologies and Summit Software Co.
“It’s great to see these well-known vendors committed to supporting ActiveX Technologies,”
said Doug Henrich, director of developer relations and publications at Microsoft Corp.
“Millions of developers worldwide rely on these development tools. With the new capabilities of tools that support ActiveX, developers can use their current skills and source code to quickly produce compelling applications for the Internet.”
Support for ActiveX Controls
ActiveX Controls, formerly OLE Controls, deliver prepackaged functionality for use in both applications software and Web page design. Leading development tools such as the
Visual C++®
development system set and Optima++ make it easy for developers to create ActiveX Controls. Developers who today offer OLE Controls to software application developers can now provide ActiveX Controls to content developers to produce compelling, active Web sites.
“Borland is absolutely committed to supporting ActiveX,”
said Paul Gross, senior vice president of research and development at Borland.
“Borland’s support for ActiveX enables our large base of developers using Delphi® , C++, Visual dBase® or Paradox® to evolve their applications to take full advantage of the Internet. Future releases of these tools will help make it easy to develop applications that take advantage of ActiveX Controls as well as active server applications.”
Support for Document Objects Technology
Document Objects are another way to make active content available on the World Wide Web. Document Objects technology integrates applications into Web browsers so data managed by those applications becomes as accessible as Web pages. Using a browser that supports Document Objects technology, a user can navigate a corporate intranet to view a department’s Web page, examine the department’s budget spreadsheet, query the database for sales data, and write a memo – all from within the browser. Leading browsers that support this technology include Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0, NCSA Mosaic 2.2 and NetScape
™
Navigator 2.0. In addition, leading tool vendors will support the creation of Document Objects.
“Powersoft is committed to providing a comprehensive set of Internet capabilities to allow our customers to build sophisticated business applications for the Web,”
said Keith Daniel, vice president and general manager of Internet products for Powersoft.
”
We have been working closely with Microsoft to help ensure that our customers can take full advantage of emerging Internet standards to utilize their Web-based applications. For example, our upcoming PowerBuilder
™
5.0 release will allow users to create OLE servers; subsequent updates of PowerBuilder will enable the creation of ActiveX Controls.
Support for ActiveX Document Authoring
Leading authoring tools for hypertext markup language (HTML) make it easy to add ActiveX Controls to Web pages to create a compelling user experience. In addition to the vendors announcing support for ActiveX at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) today in San Francisco, hundreds of ActiveX Controls are available today from established vendors.
“SoftQuad is committed to providing ActiveX support in the next version of HoTMetaL PRO® ,”
said Murray Maloney, head of product management at SoftQuad.
“With the ability to create interactive Web documents that include ActiveX Controls and scripts, our users can deliver compelling, active content within standards-conforming HTML on the Internet and corporate intranets. For example, simply by entering some information into a dialog box, SoftQuad HoTMetaL PRO users can create interactive forms with display features such as tabbed dialog boxes, or add all sorts of animation to their Web pages, including 3-D elements.”
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.
Microsoft, ActiveX, Visual C++, Windows, Visual Basic and Win32 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the
United States and/or other countries.
Delphi, Visual dBase and Paradox are registered trademarks of Borland International Inc.
NetScape is a trademark of NetScape Communications Corp.
PowerBuilder is a trademark of Powersoft Corp.
HoTMetal PRO is a registered trademark of SoftQuad.
Webber is a trademark of Cerebral Systems Development Corp.
BasicScript is a registered trademark of Summit Software Co.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft home page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/. To receive Microsoft press releases by fax, please call (800) 859-5915 in the United States or (201) 333-0314 internationally.
Tool Vendors Supporting ActiveX
Blue Sky Software http://www.blue-sky.com/
Borland International Inc. http://www.borland.com/
Brooklyn North Software Works Inc. http://fox.nstn.ca/~harawitz/index.html
Cerebral Systems Development Corp. http://www.csdcorp.com/
hip communications inc. http://www.hip.com/
InContext Systems http://www.incontext.com/
Mystic River Software Inc. http://www.mysticriver.com/
Nesbitt Software http://www.nesbitt.com/
NuMega Technologies Inc. http://www.numega.com/
Powersoft Corp. http://www.powersoft.com/
Quarterdeck Corp. Inc. http://www.quarterdeck.com/
SoftQuad Inc. http://www.sq.com/
Statute Technologies http://www.stattech.com.au/
Summit Software Co. http://www.summsoft.com/
Vendors Voice Support for ActiveX
Quote Sheet
The Help-to-HTML kit from Blue Sky Software automatically converts Windows®
Help to HTML. This allows you to take full advantage of your existing investment in online documentation and easily bring it to the Web. The Help-to-HTML kit offers full support for Microsoft Internet Explorer.
– Jorgen Lien
President
Blue Sky Software.
Brooklyn North Software Works is pleased to announce support for Microsoft’s ActiveX Technologies, including creating Web pages using ActiveX Controls, in the next release of our award-winning HTML Assistant Pro. HTML Assistant Pro was the first Web page editor on the market, and we’re committed to enabling Web designers to keep up with the latest innovations in Internet and Web technology. ActiveX Controls enable a new generation of engaging, active content on the Web, and we’re excited to make it easy for Web designers to put this exciting technology to work.
– Howard Harawitz
President
Brooklyn North Software Works
The Webber
™
family of authoring tools will support a range of Microsoft’s Internet technologies including Internet-enabled ActiveX Controls, Visual Basic Script, and Internet Explorer HTML extensions. Microsoft’s strategy brings a familiar scripting environment and a visual way to interact with extended content types to the Internet. Internet content authors using Webber will have a great array of new tools available to create compelling content easily that will make their messages stand out.
– Stephen Owens
President
Cerebral Systems Development Corp.
The Microsoft Internet Information Server is an extremely solid Web server platform. Our clients are running mission-critical Web sites and cannot afford to have the server buckle under load – IIS provides them with that solid foundation. Using the Microsoft Internet Information Server filter interface and the ActiveX Server extensions, we were able to build a Perl interpretor in the hip Web kit that significantly outperforms any other server-side scripting environment. This allows our clients to develop interactive, responsive Web sites for their customers at a much lower price point.
– Dick Hardt
President
hip communications inc.
InContext Spider was one of the first Web publishing tools on the market to provide full support for Microsoft Internet Explorer, and one of the first to support ActiveX Controls. By providing early support for Microsoft ActiveX Technologies, we’re enhancing the users Web authoring
experience and making it easy for them to create innovative Web pages.
– Ian Hembery
Vice President of Marketing and Sales
InContext
Our flagship product, SBL, is the leading embeddable Microsoft Visual Basic®
for Applications-compatible scripting language. By extending our powerful Visual Basic for Applications-compatible language to include ActiveX Controls, we will enable software developers to increase the functionality of their Internet applications. Our complete Visual Basic for Applications-compatible capabilities, including a powerful integrated development environment, will make the implementation and automation of ActiveX Controls easier and cost-effective for our customers.
– Jerry Bedrick
President
Mystic River Software
The current version of WebEdit, version 1.4, already provides complete support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 HTML extensions, including marquees, background sounds and watermarks. WebEdit 2.0 will offer complete support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 including ActiveX Controls, adding rich interactivity for very cool pages.
– Ken Nesbitt
President
Nesbitt Software
Since the initial introduction of BoundsChecker, NuMega has made a commitment to not only support Microsoft’s vision for application development, but to work with the company at the earliest possible stage to ensure that NuMega’s products inherently support Microsoft’s newest applications. With BoundsChecker, developers using Microsoft ActiveX Technologies have a powerful error-detection tool that helps ensure the development of robust applications that meet demanding time-to-market requirements.
– Jim Moskun
Chairman
NuMega Technologies
We’re fully aligned with Microsoft’s Internet vision. Microsoft’s strong commitment to supporting and enhancing the Internet fits neatly with our plans. Having made the investment in Win32®
and OLE in our product family, we’re well placed to ride the next wave. Internet-enabling our products was a simple incremental step.
– Michael Johns
General Manager
Statute Technologies
We are pleased to announce plans to support the Microsoft ActiveX Scripting and ActiveX Server initiatives. Here at the Microsoft Internet PDC, Summit Software will demonstrate BasicScript®
running as an ActiveX Scripting-based engine within Internet Explorer 3.0 and as an ActiveX server-based dynamic link library with the Microsoft Internet Information Server. With the ActiveX technologies, our customers can build even more robust intranet and Internet solutions.
– Bill Fisher
President
Summit Software Co.
