The Road Ahead: Internet Battle

Last December, I read The Road Ahead, by Bill Gates. In thisthought-provoking book, Gates speculates about how the Information Highway willaffect our futures. He sees Microsoft's success riding on its ability to prevailin this emerging market. The book does not, however, reveal Microsoft's plans toensure this success. That revelation came at the March 1996 ProfessionalDevelopers Conference, where Microsoft announced corporate infrastructurechanges and the ActiveX technology.

First, Microsoft's Personal Systems Division (PSD), which managed Windows95, no longer exists. The Windows 95 team is now under the Business SystemsDivision, which manages all NT products. Brad Silverberg, former PSD manager, isnow manager of a new Internet Division that is focusing on ActiveX, a collectionof tools and technologies, including VBScript, Network OLE, Internet InformationServer (IIS), Internet Explorer 3.0, IIS Connectors, FrontPage, Internet Studio,and Jakarta (Java development)--see "Windows and Databases Meet theInter(intra)net," page 28.

You can expect Microsoft to develop all Internet-related softwaresimultaneously for Windows 95 and Windows NT. For example, Microsoft plans tocombine the Windows Explorer (file manager) with the Internet Explorer (Webbrowser), so that even the core features of the operating system are Web aware.This combination product (code named Nashville) will be released for NT and 95simultaneously. Microsoft will heavily emphasize the newest BackOffice products,Exchange Server and IIS.

Many people predicted Netscape would be fatally wounded when Microsoftannounced it was giving away IIS. But reports of Netscape's death were greatlyexaggerated. Netscape rebounded by creating SuiteSpot, a group of Internetproducts that includes a Web server, a development environment (LiveWire Pro)with integrated database connectivity, a mail server, a news server, a catalogserver for indexing content, and a proxy server for enhanced enterprise intranetsecurity. SuiteSpot is a comprehensive strategy that has Microsoft's completeattention.

The Internet frenzy has created some interesting industry tension. WithSuiteSpot, Netscape is setting up to compete with Microsoft's ActiveX, whileIBM, Informix, Verity, Sun, NeXT, Oracle, and others hedge their bets and playboth sides. They all want to be ready for future corporate applicationdevelopment on intranets. Soon, Web access will move from a nice-to-havefeature to a must have. Internet technologies are set to providedistributed, three-tiered client/server, cross-platform, object-orienteddevelopment, and more. Soon, we will all be developing intranet applications, anarea expected to grow from 2.2 million servers to 150 million by 1998.

For all the players, Windows NT, messaging, and intranets have become vitalto future success.