Microsoft Corp is not setting up a rival to the Internet. But if Microsoft gets its way, the Microsoft Network will turn out to be something far bigger and more commercial. The clues to this conclusion were scattered everywhere throughout a Microsoft presentation supposedly aimed at reconciling its product line with the success of the Internet. The event was staged just before the company announced its minority stake in big Internet services provider UUnet Technologies Inc, Falls Church, Virginia (CI No 2,581). The products shown ranged from the impressive Microsoft Network itself, based on a new proprietary Microsoft protocol, through the Windows95 TCP/IP stack, down to a group of freeware products that Microsoft has sponsored but not written. These included a World Wide Web server, file transfer protocol and Gopher software, and various extensions to Microsoft Word that make it Internet-friendly.
Lip-service
Microsoft clearly felt it had a duty to the hardware suppliers that support NT, which desperately needed to have a Web server for the Windows NT operating system, or else miss out on what promises to be one of the most lucrative mid-range server markets over the next five to 10 years. But the software giant was not committed enough to write a line of code itself. Microsoft also demonstrated an early beta version of its Exchange Server, a sort of cross between Lotus Development Corp’s Notes, Softswitch and SQL Forms, enabling group conferencing, on-line meetings, document interchange and forms creation. Microsoft Exchange comes configured and enabled to be used across a wide-area network such as the Internet, or indeed Microsoft Network. Microsoft reminded the world that Windows95 will come with a bundled client link into Exchange Server. No-one is going to argue that Microsoft does not write friendly and powerful software, but for a presentation that was dedicated to the Internet, the Microsoft executives present paid an awful lot of lip-service to just how few people actually use it. Microsoft claimed that 96% of personal computer owners that have modems are using no on-line service whatsoever in the hyper-mature US market. This combined with the fact that the Internet is seen by Microsoft as being difficult to use, navigate and configure machines for, clearly invites the 40m people that it expects to buy Windows95 during its first 12 months, to stop off on the Microsoft Network on the way to the information superhighway. One critical contribution from the floor was worded just like that: Is not this like stopping at the airport shops on the way to the boarding gate? a comment to which Microsoft executives were unable to respond adequately.
By Nick Patience
The first hurdle on the way to turning the thing into a super network is the need for Microsoft’s offering to eclipse those from Compuserve Inc, America Online Inc and Prodigy Services Co. Apart from the 48,000 Windows95 beta test sites that Microsoft claimed are currently testing the network, Microsoft Network could get a real boost by Microsoft employees everywhere switching to it in August – or whenever Windows95 ships – once it goes live. That would mean the fledgling network would have to cope instantly with 250,000 electronic mail messages a week, and traffic growing at 10% per week. Microsoft further distanced itself from the Internet by making it clear that the freeware World Wide Web server, written by Edinburgh University-based European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Centre (CI No 2,378) was not a fully secure encrypted and supported service ready for commercial application. Mark East, Microsoft’s business manager for small and medium organisations, hosting the event, made it clear that support for a commercial version would not be coming from Microsoft by announcing licensing deals between the University-based project and the two organisations that would back a commercial version, Unipalm Ltd in the UK and Process Software Corp in the US (CI No 2,575). We do not expect there is any money to be made out of eit
her browsers or Web server software on the Internet, East said. Jeremy Gittins, Microsoft’s UK Windows95 product manager also commented that the company views the Internet largely as an academic medium. One little-known addition to the Word suite is that a freeware browser enabling users that have not been seduced by the Microsoft Word word processor to browse remote Word databases is now offered by Microsoft.
Direct line
This adds the last ingredient to Microsoft’s vision of a super network, offering connection in 35 countries in 11 languages, but which owes nothing to the Internet, with hypertext provided by the Windows help syvem, document preparation under Word, and the freeware Web servers dishing out inew soon-to-be happy band of 40m Windows95 users. Microsoft’s new corporate catchline of Where do you want to go today? made an appearance on the badges issued to the audience at the London teach-in on Microsoft and the Internet. One place that the audience did not want to go to was back to school to the huge lecture theatres of Imperial College where the event was held. The reason for the location remained a mystery until an academic logged on to the Internet. The highly Internet-aware audience, accustomed to waiting forever to complete a log-on, drumming their fingers while a picture builds and unload, gasped as the speed of connection. The demonstration of some live video was old hat, but the speed impressed all. How are you connected? was the inevitable question, answered by Just a direct line. The direct line turned out to be an Asynchronous Transfer Mode link across Super-Janet, the high-speed universities’ network that is only accessible if you’re at a UK university. Now we know why we all had to take a step back to our college days for the demonstration.
