Microsoft Announces Delivery of “Normandy” Beta II CD To Preview Customers

REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 30, 1996 —
Microsoft Corp. today announced that the
“Normandy” beta II version CD has been shipped to its preview customers. In addition, Microsoft announced that several of the servers in the Normandy family of Internet servers will be made available for separate download from the World Wide Web, beginning today with Microsoft® Internet News Server. Normandy is the code name for the company’s line of Internet servers that help customers cultivate vibrant communities of interest, address the intricacies of Web content publishing and site management, and conduct business online.

“As an enhancement to the Windows NT® Server network operating system and Microsoft Internet Information Server, the Normandy family exposes customers to the next generation of Web experience, giving their users a personalized, one-to-one experience on the Internet and defining a spectrum of new commercial opportunities for businesses,”
said Anthony Bay, general manager of the Internet services business unit at Microsoft.
“Strong customer demand is driving us to expand the beta program. We have found that Normandy servers appeal to a very wide range of customers building Web sites.”

Microsoft Internet News Server is the first Normandy server to be made available for Web download, starting today. Microsoft Internet Chat Server and Microsoft Content Replication Server are scheduled to be available on the Web within two weeks.

Microsoft Internet News Server: A Commercial-Grade, Standards-Based Server for Hosting Collaborative Forums

Microsoft Internet News Server enables customers to operate
“threaded”
discussion groups streams of conversation among multiple users that can occur over extended periods of time or host Internet news feeds. Microsoft Internet News Server is designed for easy setup, administration and operation and is tightly integrated with Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) and Windows NT administration and security. Because Microsoft Internet News Server is natively based on existing standard protocols, such as network news transfer protocol (NNTP) and secure sockets layer (SSL), administrators can easily add discussion group functionality to an existing Web site. Microsoft Internet News Server will work with any standard NNTP client, such as the Internet News client included at no charge with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0. Additional features of Microsoft Internet News Server include these:

  • Newsgroups property control settings that allow an administrator to create and modify public, read-only, moderated and private discussion groups

  • Multiple security options including NNTP security extensions, SSL, NTLM and Microsoft Distributed Password Authentication

  • Integration with other Normandy servers, providing for advanced functionality including newsgroup searches, replication of access control lists, distributed authentication, and integration with external billing systems

Normandy Servers Provide Enhanced Service on the Web and Intranets

The Normandy family of scalable Internet server applications is based on Microsoft Windows NT Server and Microsoft Internet Information Server. The full family includes chat, news, mail, personalization, content replication, information retrieval,
“white pages,”
membership and merchant server applications.

This family of products is designed to provide a comprehensive platform for organizations that want to provide value-added Internet services. By using Normandy servers as part of a commercial Web site, organizations can transform a static Web site into a personalized, one-to-one relationship with each of their customers and partners, thereby improving customer and partner relations while lowering their cost of sales and service. For public network operators and Internet service providers (ISPs), the Normandy servers provide value-added services to customers and therefore represent enhanced revenue opportunities.

Beta Availability

Microsoft Internet News Server is available immediately to download from the Internet at http://www.microsoft.com/internet/normandy/ . Microsoft Internet Chat Server and Microsoft Content Replication Server are scheduled to be delivered over the Internet within two weeks.

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 andpersonal 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 and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

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