FRAMINGHAM (12-01-95) - Microsoft Corp. will stage a glitzy dog and pony show next week to show how it is ready to storm the Internet with a slew of new and enhanced products.
But users, analysts and industry observers last week agreed that competitors have no immediate reason to fear Microsoft's on-line might.
"If I were a Microsoft competitor, I wouldn't be afraid of the Big Bad Wolf because I don't think all the pieces are there for them to dominate the Internet yet," said Chris DeVoney, an author of books on Windows and a syndicated technology columnist in Seattle.
The Achilles' heel for Microsoft is the company's reluctance to support Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java Internet programming language. Although licenses for Java are relatively inexpensive, Microsoft has instead tried to position its OLE controls technology, called OCX, as a direct competitor to Java.
Netscape Communications Corp. and Spyglass Inc. have announced plans to support Java in upcoming releases of their popular browsers. But while Microsoft's browser is a hybrid based on Spyglass', the company still won't commit to supporting Java.
Java "is a really simple way to write applications for Unix, Mac or whatever," said Art McAnarney, a senior programmer/analyst at Lockheed Martin Corp. The defense contractor in Littleton, Colo., bought an unlimited-user license for Netscape's Navigator and expects to install it on 80,000 user desktops by years end.
Microsoft must address the Java question soon or risk losing potential customers, said Dave Garaffa, who runs BrowserWatch, a Web site that monitors the browser market.
Still, many observers agreed that this week's Internet strategy briefing will produce at least the appearance that Microsoft will soon be a big presence on the 'net. Products and technologies to be shown, according to executives and sources at Microsoft, include the following:
--Early versions of Office 96 applications that will provide Internet integration features, such as conferencing over the Internet.
--The Exchange messaging server, which entered release candidate stage (the phase right before commercial release) on Dec. 1. Exchange Server, the electronic-mail engine that will be the cornerstone of Microsoft's future groupware strategy, will bundle in a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Internet Connector, which enables users of mail clients that support SMTP mail to send E-mail to the server.
--The Internet Information Server (IIS), code-named Gibraltar, which just entered beta testing. The IIS will also feature a new application programming interface (API) jointly developed with Process Software Corp. Called the Internet Server API, or ISAPI, it was designed to simplify the task of writing applications to run on the IIS.
--Internet Explorer 2.0, the company's new browser that became available in final form last week on Microsoft's home page on the World Wide Web.
--Extensions to Visual Basic to support ISAPI, probably early next year. These will enable users to write applications quickly, sources said.
--Extensions to Microsoft's OLE technology and OCXs to enable them to work over the Internet.
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