Microsoft to release BackOffice 4.0 next week

At Internet World next week in New York, Microsoft will release BackOffice4.0, its latest suite of Windows NT Server applications. The new release--which is an upgrade to version 2.5--consists of Windows NT Server4.0, Exchange Server 5.5, SQL Server 6.5, Systems Management Server 1.2, SNA Server 4.0, and the NT 4.0 Option Pack, which includes Internet Information Server 4.0. BackOffice Enterprise Edition 4.0 will consist ofWindows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition, SQL Server 6.5 Enterprise Edition, Exchange Server 5.5 Enterprise Edition, and Site Server 2.0 Enterprise Edition.

The Enterprise Edition of Site Server add e-commerce management and analysis features to the Web management component. The next version of SiteServer--version 3.0--is expected in the Spring. Microsoft will post a betaversion to its Web site before the end of the month.

BackOffice Enterprise Edition 4.0 is optimized for eight-way processing.

"If you upgrade to the Enterprise Edition, you can be running the whole BackOffice suite on an eight-way SMP," said Kevin Breunig, the lead productmanager for BackOffice.

The next version of BackOffice will be released with Windows NT 5.0 latenext year or in early 1999. BackOffice 5.0 will the next version of Exchange Server (code-named "Platinum"), SQL Server 7.0 (code-named "Sphinx"),and Systems Management Server 3.0 (code-named "Opal")