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California Educational Data Processing Association
The DataBus - Vol. 36, No. 5
August-September, 1996

Microsoft News Flash

Elisa Bartell, Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft made a number of significant Internet related announcements in June. The following summarizes some of the highlights. For a copy of a complete press release on any of the following announcements, please send email to [email protected] or refer to http://www.microsoft.com for more information on Microsoft products, tools and announcements.

OFFICE 97 AND MICROSOFT'S INTRANET STRATEGY

On June 13th, Bill Gates outlined Microsoft's strategy to help users work together on an intranet using Microsoft® Office. Gates previewed the next version of the world's most popular desktop suite, Office 97, which includes built-in hyperlinking, searching and navigation functionality. This powerful combination of Microsoft Office and Web technology introduces a new standard for collaboration by providing users with the tools to create, analyze and share information easily on an intranet.

As part of its intranet strategy, Microsoft also unveiled an innovative desktop information-management application, Microsoft Outlook(tm), which facilitates both internal and external corporate communications. The addition of Microsoft Outlook to Office 97 redefines communication and collaboration as integral parts of the desktop-application suite category. Together, these new Web technologies and products are designed to combine the best of the Web and the best of the desktop, to empower users to realize the full potential of intranets. "Intranets provide a great infrastructure for communicating, but they are only as valuable as the information they contain," said Pete Higgins, group vice president of the applications and content group at Microsoft. "Office 97 delivers a powerful solution for business users who want to take advantage of intranets. By integrating Web technology into Office 97, we brought the ease of use of desktop applications to intranet users.

MICROSOFT LAUNCHES DEDICATED OFFICE DEVELOPER WEB PAGE

On June 17, 1996, Microsoft launched its new Microsoft® Office Developer Web Page within the popular microsoft.com support site. This no-charge, specialized content area is designed to provide developers working with Microsoft Office the key technical information they need to create custom applications using the advanced features of Microsoft Office.

Developers involved in designing custom solutions for personal or business applications will find a broad base of helpful information on topics such as integrated features used to automate tasks through advanced Microsoft Office tools, procedures for creating APIs with the Microsoft Visual Basic® programming system, data retrieval and integration from external sources, Microsoft Access built-in functions, and a rich array of productivity enhancement tips and tricks from Microsoft support engineers. In addition, the new Microsoft Office Developer Web page provides easy access to Microsoft Knowledge Base, a comprehensive collection of more than 70,000 technical articles, as well as access to Microsoft's extensive software library.

The Microsoft Office Developer Web page is located at http://www.microsoft.com /OffDevSupport/. Direct inquiries for technical assistance should not be submitted by means of this site. For more information on other Microsoft support options, please call (800) 936-3500.

MICROSOFT DELIVERS JAVA SUPPORT FOR INTERNET EXPLORER 3.0

On June 20, 1996, Microsoft announced that support for Java with Microsoft® Internet Explorer version 3.0 is available for immediate download at no charge from Microsoft's Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/ie/). Microsoft's open implementation of Java gives developers fast performance and the broadest functionality of any native Java implementation available today. And users can now view the breadth of innovative content on the Web, regardless of the development tool used to create the site. Microsoft is also working to include Java support in the versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows® 3.1 and Macintosh® in the near future.

The delivery of Java support for Microsoft Internet Explorer provides the following capabilities:

INTERNET WORKSHOP WEB SITE GOES LIVE

On June 26, 1996, Microsoft announced the Internet Workshop, a Web site that provides comprehensive resources for developing with ActiveX(tm) Technologies. This site is targeted to anyone involved in the creation and maintenance of today's exciting, active Web sites, including designers, developers, business and production planners, content authors, and site administrators.

Initially, the Internet Workshop includes extensive information on HTML authoring, site production, Web design, development with ActiveX, and much more. Over the coming months, the site will expand to include a library of detailed technical articles on a multitude of Internet technologies and products, sample code from real Web sites, newsletters written by industry experts, third-party tools and extensive Java documentation, as well as many other valuable resources.

The Internet Workshop goes live today and can be found at http://microsoft.com/workshop/.

Any questions? Please call Microsoft Inside Sales at 1-800-426-9400.

Elisa Bartell is an Education Account Representative for Microsoft. She can be reached at (310) 449-7300, ext 7344, or by e-mail at [email protected].

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