FRAMINGHAM (09-29-95) - Though initially slow to recognize the Internet's potential, Microsoft Corp. has turned its gaze upon that kingdom and now hopes to set the pace for software and standards.
While it might not win any popularity contests in the Internet community, sheer market clout seems to assure Microsoft a major role. "Microsoft has very deep pockets and could drive other firms into the dust," said Jerry Johnson, senior policy analyst in the state of Texas department of information resources and planning.
As Jim Allchin, Microsoft senior vice president, outlined in a speech this week at NetWorld+Interop, the firm plans to hit the ground running. In particular, the company is pushing new Web servers and a browser with which it hopes to dethrone Netscape Communications Corp., Open Market Inc. and other Web powerhouses.
It might work. Microsoft may be able to quickly capture market share by giving its browser away for free and bundling its Web software into Windows NT Server, Johnson said.
One analyst concurred, saying that Microsoft will launch the NT Server/Web bundle next year. "This will allow them to create a critical mass of users rather quickly," said John Robb, analyst with Cambridge, Mass.-based consultancy Forrester Research Inc.
Users will eventually pay the price, getting fewer choices, if competition is eliminated, Johnson noted.
Microsoft is also proposing an array of Internet multimedia and security standards to govern electronic commerce, Allchin said. Simultaneously, Microsoft is disdaining technologies its competitors already have developed, such as Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java language for the Web.
Microsoft's image may be the firm's worst enemy. "There's a lot of anti-Microsoft sentiment in the way they attempt to dominate the market," said Andy Schwab, vice president at Raleigh, N.C.-based consultancy Trinet Services Inc., which manages First Union Bank's Web secure server for accepting credit card applications. "The Internet tends to support technology by popular demand, and I don't think Microsoft understands that," Schwab said.
But the firm is undaunted. "Virtually every group at Microsoft is involved in relating its products to the Internet in some way," said Mike Conte, Microsoft's group manager of the personal systems division.
Microsoft also has its eyes on the electronic commerce prize. This week, Visa International Inc. and Microsoft jointly published the Secure Transaction Technology (STT) spec used to pass encrypted credit cards from Web browser to server and into existing bankcard verification networks worldwide.
STT trumps the Netscape security standard called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which only handles data encryption between the browser and server, pointed out John Pescatore, an analyst with Vienna, Va.-based IDC Government. "Visa has this well thought out," Pescatore said. "And where the big guys go, the rest will follow in electronic commerce."
MasterCard International Inc. declined to endorse STT, accusing Visa of backing away from a commitment the two had to develop a common standard.
Netscape, which plans to proceed in issuing its own end-to-end credit card security spec with MasterCard later this year, warned that joining the Microsoft-Visa camp will mean turning electronic commerce into a tollbooth for Microsoft.
"We are putting our spec out in source code we will license for free," said Mike Homer, Netscape's vice president of marketing. "But Microsoft is only publishing the spec and licensing the source code for a fee."
Some analysts predicted there will be a backlash to Microsoft's insistence on licensing STT. "That's Microsoft's old business model rearing its ugly head," said Michael Sullivan-Trainor, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based research firm International Data Corp.
There are relatively few businesses on the Internet today that use secured Web servers to process credit card transactions. But those that do expressed dismay at being caught in the cross fire of a standards battle.
"It's not in anybody's best interest to have two standards," said Scott Randall, general manager at NECX Direct, which sells computer hardware and software to corporate accounts and individual consumers by processing credit cards through a secured Web server.
[Copyright 1995 Network World (US), International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]