Rudder Highlights Tremendous Industry Momentum Around Microsoft .NET

NEW ORLEANS, April 10, 2002 — In his keynote address at Microsoft Tech
·Ed 2002, Eric Rudder, senior vice president of the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft Corp., highlighted substantial support from business application ISVs pursuing opportunities on the Microsoft®
.NET Platform. The announcement underscores the emergence of .NET and XML Web services as solutions to technology and business problems for customers today.

“Since its launch just two months ago, we’ve seen huge momentum around industry partners taking advantage of new opportunities by complementing the .NET Platform,” Rudder said. “The vast industry movement around Visual Studio®
.NET and the .NET Framework is a sign that the industry is energized for a new platform that unleashes the powerful capabilities made possible through XML Web services.”

Joining Rudder on stage was Patrick Bultema, president and CEO of FrontRange Solutions Inc., maker of GoldMine and HEAT. Bultema demonstrated the company’s next version of its customer relationship management (CRM) application built on the .NET Framework. FrontRange is taking advantage of the power of Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework to deliver an integrated CRM solution that combines multiple data sources to enable medium-sized and large businesses to be more responsive to their customers.

“Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework let us rapidly build very scalable and robust applications in a much shorter time frame,” Bultema said. “Our developers are three times more productive because the environment makes it so much easier to build applications. Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework reduce technical issues so we can focus on creating value for customers in our applications.”

Plumtree Software Inc., another business application ISV, is using the .NET Platform to integrate electronic resources and build a new generation of reliable, high-performance Web applications.

“Plumtree builds the most scalable corporate portal on the Windows®
platform in the market,” said Glenn Kelman, vice president of marketing and product management at Plumtree Software. “.NET is giving its own developers the tools to build a faster, more reliable user interface in ASP.NET, and it provides our customers with the best environment to extend the portal with Plumtree Web Services using Visual Studio .NET.”

Rudder announced a number of other business application ISVs that have signed up to build solutions based on the .NET Platform:

  • Avinon. Avinon Inc. takes advantage of XML Web services and the Microsoft .NET Platform to enable rapid automation of processes associated with delivering valued business services to customers and partners. Building on a host of Microsoft products, Avinon’s innovative NetScenario software enables quick and easy delivery of online, self-service interactions in a fraction of the time and cost that typically marks Web-based application development.

  • Centra. Centra Software provides business software solutions for learning online and real-time collaboration, enabling organizations to deliver information and knowledge in a variety of live, online and self-service formats. The Microsoft .NET Platform provides Centra with the scalable, high-performing infrastructure necessary to deliver the highest level of service reliability to its worldwide eMeeting ASP customer base.

  • Clarus. Clarus utilizes Microsoft .NET to deliver a comprehensive suite of supplier relationship management (SRM) applications that automate and optimize the end-to-end procurement process. The combination of Clarus SRM and Microsoft .NET delivers breakthrough cost reductions by enabling customers to quickly elevate, manage and leverage win-win relationships broadly across their supplier base.

  • Comshare. Comshare Inc. MPC uses SOAP to expose existing COM objects as XML Web services. A new module of Comshare MPC is written purely with .NET (Visual Studio .NET, using Visual C# (TM) , XML Web services and Windows Forms). The release is scheduled for August.

  • Corechange. Corechange Inc. is taking full advantage of the Microsoft .NET Platform to enable global enterprises to develop, deploy and manage dynamic portals that connect its worldwide employees, customers and business partners.

  • EDS PLM. e-Vis service is an Internet-connected work space in which colleagues, suppliers and partners can collaborate, share data and make decisions. The .NET Framework integrates so easily with Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers that EDS PLM Solutions is able to spend much less time working on infrastructure and a lot more time working on its applications.

  • Epicor. Using the .NET Platform and XML Web services, Epicor Software Corp.’s applications work in truly distributed environments and provide interoperability with other systems faster and more economically than before.

  • ESRI. The .NET Framework provides a Web application model in the form of a set of controls and an infrastructure that make it simple for ESRI developers to build Web applications.

  • Onyx. By exposing XML Web service interfaces, Onyx Software Corp. can now seamlessly integrate with non-Microsoft platforms such as J2EE application servers from IBM and BEA.

Overall, Rudder announced support from Adobe Systems Inc., Autodesk Inc., Avinon, Best Software Inc. (formerly Sage Software), Centra Software, Clarus, Click Commerce Inc., Comshare, Corechange Inc., Corillian Corp., DeKlarit (formerly ArTech), EDS PLM Solutions, Epicor Software Corp., ESRI, FrontRange, FiServ Inc., Fidesic Inc., Groove Networks Inc., IONA Technologies, KANA Inc., Macromedia Inc., McAfee.com, Navision a/s, Onyx, Plumtree Software Inc., SunGard, Symantec Corp., Toshiba TEC Corp. and Webridge Inc.

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.

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