Microsoft at N+I: ISPs, Large Customers Benefit Through Product Enhancements and Improved Interoperability
Jim Allchin noted in his N+I keynote today that Microsoft is helping customers reduce total cost of ownership and create more business value. The announcements at the show this week illustrate how Microsoft is delivering on those promises – with a large-scale ISP and commercial service provider product, UNIX integration tools for its popular Windows NT technology, and its improved streaming multimedia technologies. Microsoft Commercial Internet System 2.0:
MCIS 2.0 is more comprehensive and integrated, and builds upon the success of MCIS 1.0, which already has several million subscribers worldwide. MCIS 2.0 further enables ISPs and other commercial service providers to meet the growing market demand for outsourcing a variety of business applications, while reducing the overall administration and management costs associated with web hosting. MCIS 2.0 scales to millions of users, supports Internet standards, and can be managed from multiple interfaces such as browsers, command lines and the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). MCIS provides interoperability with UNIX systems by allowing current applications to be integrated with membership services. This enables commercial providers to easily grow their businesses while preserving their existing infrastructure investments
Windows NT Services for UNIX Add-on Pack:
Microsoft Corp. today announced the development of the Windows NT Services for UNIX Add-On Pack, which will make it easier for customers to integrate Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0 into their existing UNIX environments. Microsoft will deliver an add-on pack beta this summer with final product delivery later this year. The Windows NT Services for Unix Add-On Pack will deliver the features and benefits that customers have most frequently requested, including resource sharing, remote administration, and password synchronization.
Windows NT Server Deployments Skyrocket:
New data from Computer Intelligence
shows a 200 percent increase in the number of Fortune 1,000 companies that have deployed the Microsoft Windows NT Server network operating system in the past 12 months. As of March 1998, more than 86 percent of these organizations have deployed Windows NT Server, while UNIX deployments remain at 61 percent. To support this adoption, 120,000 Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) have been trained to install, configure, support and/or administer Windows NT Server, an increase of 150 percent in the past 12 months.
NetShow 3.0 beta 2:
On Monday at N+I, Microsoft announced the second beta of NetShow 3.0, the Windows NT Server streaming multimedia service. In addition, Microsoft announced the second beta of the new universal player, the Microsoft Media Player, and the fourth beta of NetShow Theater Server for providing broadcast-quality video on dedicated networks. Representing major enhancements, these technologies offer customers the highest quality, most integrated and most comprehensive streaming multimedia solution in the industry.