REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 2, 1998 — In his Developer Days ’98 keynote speech, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates reiterated his company’s commitment to customer satisfaction in the enterprise space with the launch of the Visual Studio® development system version 6.0, a set of software development tools that help ensure Microsoft® software works well with competing software applications across the enterprise. Gates outlines his vision for a corporate
“digital nervous system,”
which enables the seamless flow of information within and between companies and with their customers.
“The digital nervous system vision is a transformation in the way business is done,”
Gates said.
“It’s an opportunity to take advantage of the talents of employees in a new way and reach out to new customers. But, building your digital nervous system requires wonderful applications that integrate with the systems you have and leverage the Web.”
Gates also reiterated Microsoft’s commitment to being a leader in enterprise computing and showed new features in the Microsoft Visual Studio development system version 6.0 for teams of programmers building mission-critical applications to connect to IBM Corp. mainframes and Oracle Systems Corp. databases.
“Our customers want software to work well across vendors and across the enterprise,”
said Bob Muglia, senior vice president, applications and tools group, Microsoft.
“Using Visual Studio, developers can edit the database definitions in Oracle, get high-speed access to Oracle databases through OLE DB, and even create PL/SQL subprograms for Oracle databases.”
The new version of Microsoft Office 2000 Developer was also announced. The new versions of Visual Studio and Office Developer, in addition to providing expanded support for the Internet, will cut development time for computer systems that run businesses and increase the production of employees who use these systems.
New Data Support Eases Integration Challenges
ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO) 2.0 is a key feature in Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise Edition, enabling developers to take advantage of new Internet technologies and preserve their investments in existing platforms such as UNIX, AS400 and IBM mainframes. Using ADO with an OLE DB provider, developers can access any type of data on any platform by writing to just one interface. ADO is an open interface, supported throughout the industry, and Microsoft will deliver new OLE DB providers for Microsoft SQL Server
™
, Oracle 7.31 and higher. Microsoft also is planning to deliver providers for VSAM and DB/2 databases running on IBM AS400 and IBM mainframes. Connectivity to many other database systems is available through third-party providers. For more information on OLE DB support, please visit the Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/data/oledb/products/product.htm .
Developer Days ’98
In addition to 33 sites in North America, Developer Days ’98 will be held in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Following the broadcast of the keynote speech, Microsoft Developer Network regional directors – local third-party experts on Microsoft technologies who volunteer to help educate, inform and gather the Windows® operating system developer community – and other community leaders will facilitate seven product sessions. These sessions are designed to help developers understand how Visual Studio enables them to build distributed, Web-based solutions on the Windows NT® operating system that integrate with their existing systems. The sessions will highlight new features of Visual Studio for component-based development, enterprise data access and development life-cycle support.
Sponsors
Global sponsors include Digital Equipment Corp., Fujitsu Ltd., IBM Corp.’s PC division, IDG, SAP AG, Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems Inc., and Silicon Graphics Inc. Partner sponsors are Attachmate Corp., InstallShield Software Corp., Programmer’s Paradise Inc., Rational Software Corp. and ZD Journals.
MSDN, the Microsoft Developer Network
Developer Days is one of many developer education and training events offered by Microsoft via MSDN
™
, the Microsoft Developer Network, to help enable developers to benefit
from the business opportunities enabled by innovations on the Windows platform
