Microsoft Corp was due to announce acquisition of a company to manage large World Wide Web sites on the Internet just after we closed last night – and the company was widely identified as Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vermeer Technologies Inc. The Redmonder plans to include Vermeer’s FrontPage Web publishing software in its Microsoft Office suite. Vermeer was formed in April 1994 to develop software to enable people to create Web pages without complicated programming. It was formed by Charles Ferguson, co-author of Computer Wars, the book that charted the downfall of IBM Corp, and Randy Forgaard, a programmer with experience at Beyond Inc; terms were not expected to be disclosed.
