Microsoft Internet strategy
A host of new products and services for the Internet is now available
from Microsoft. Dermot Hogan takes a look and explains the impact
they can have on your life as a surfer
Microsoft
and the
Internet
On 7 December 1995, Bill Gates announced, ìThe Internet is pervasive in everything that weíre doing.î Microsoft was launching its Internet strategy and Gates outlined a broad statement of Microsoftís fundamental approach to the Internet. Consequently, in the future, just about everything Microsoft produces will be ëInternet awareí.
No single company dominates the Internet ñ its standards are open. Microsoft is upgrading all its products to use these standards as part of a fundamental communications architecture and it views the Internet not as an optional extra, but more as a common hardware feature, like a telephony standard.
Microsoft has therefore produced a huge range of software to address
almost every aspect of the Internet, from the Internet Information
Server, which allows you to build your own Web server, to the
Internet Assistant, a simple but flexible HTML editor add-on for
Microsoft® Word.
Client software
Internet client software is the visible part of the Internet iceberg
ñ the systemís front end. At one end of the client
software scale is Internet Studio, aimed at professionals, which
lets you build high-quality multimedia Web pages with a DTP (Desktop
Publishing) look and feel. At the other end, you can use Microsoft
Wordís Internet Assistant to publish Word documents on
the Web. To view your Web pages, thereís also the Internet
Explorer ñ a fully featured Web browser. But first weíll
take a look at FrontPage, a high-quality Web authoring and management
tool.
FrontPage
FrontPage is designed to help you build and control a medium-sized Web site. With the FrontPage editor, you can create and edit your HTML pages and then use the FrontPage Explorer to visualise the links and connections that youíve put into the Web pages. Because of the client-server architecture, more than one person can work on the Web structure at the same time. If you are going to take building a medium-sized Web site seriously, this is an important consideration. Beyond a certain size, a web site will become virtually unmanageable if only one person is expected to do everything. Unless the product is structured for multiple use, chaos will almost certainly result.
Also, for collaborative Web site management, FrontPage has a ëto-doí list for tracking outstanding Web management and authoring tasks. The Web is the public face of your company and trivial slip-ups will be broadcast to a very wide audience indeed. Similarly, a Web site internal to a company ñ an Intranet ñ is the public face of your department. It pays to cover the details.
Finally, FrontPage has a set of tools, called ëWebBotsí, for building common Web server functions such as text searches, feedback forms and discussion forums.
A discussion forum can be of great use in a geographically diverse
company. It allows everyone interested in a subject, a new product
launch for example, to suggest ideas, add comments and see the
input from others without having to organise endless meetings.
The Internet Studio
With the Microsoft Internet Studio (formerly known as Blackbird), you will be able to create high-quality, magazine-style pages on the Web. In other words, the Internet Studio is a desktop publishing system for the Internet.
But the Internet Studio goes further than any magazine can. As the end product is viewed with a PC Web browser, you can also add sounds and even animation to make dynamic multimedia Web pages. However, although itís wonderful to be able to build good looking and interesting pages, itís not if you have to spend hours fiddling with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) hieroglyphics. With the Internet Studio you can build stylish multimedia Web pages with a slick layout, without having to write any HTML code. All your work is done with a simple drag-and-drop approach, just as if you were working with Microsoft® Publisher.
The Internet Studio automatically manages the content of your Web pages. For example, it will maintain the hypertext links within your Web pages so that if you decide to drop a Web page, all links to that page will be removed from the other pages. This function is essential if youíre managing a complex Web site with frequently changing information.
Itís sometimes the case that, if itís simple to use, all you can do with it is simple things. However, the capabilities of the Internet Studio are extensive. You can use your own favourite authoring tools like Microsoft® Office or Microsoft® Publisher, or other tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw or Macromedia Director. And, as third party OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) controls become available, youíll be able to use these as design elements as well.
The Internet Studio creates HTML script as its output, but because HTML doesnít support multimedia as such, Microsoft has extended HTML for this purpose. To enable existing browsers to view Internet Studio applications, Microsoft will provide a free, downloadable viewer. Microsoft is publishing its HTML
extensions as proposed enhancements to the current HTML specification. These are likely
to be adopted by other browser vendors ñ
just as Microsoft will adopt other market standard enhancements.
Internet Assistant
For many users, particularly those who produce Microsoft Word documents, using a separate Web authoring tool may not be convenient. By way of help, Microsoft has produced the Internet Assistant, a free add-on for Word. This makes conversion from Word to HTML simple. In the walkthrough on page 17, you can see how easy it is to produce a Web page with the Internet Assistant and Word. Essentially, the Internet Assistant takes a Word document and, together with the formatting instructions you add, creates an HTML file that is suitable for Internet viewing.
Because the Internet Assistant is based around Word, you can use Word as the ëassembly pointí for compound documents. You can embed spreadsheets, sounds and pictures into your Web page, just as you would in a standard compound Word document. In fact, you donít actually have to publish the results on the Internet. You can use the Internet Assistant to link Word documents on your internal local area network.
If you come across Word documents on the Web but donít have Word, you can read and print them using the Microsoft® Word Viewer. The Microsoft® Excel Viewer and Microsoft® PowerPoint Viewer let you do the same thing with Excel and PowerPoint documents.
Another development is the idea of the ëIntranetí or internal company Internet. If the World Wide Web is a good idea for the global interchange of information, why not use something similar within your company? The Internet Assistant makes this easy. All you need to do is add a few links to your memos. These could be, for instance, references back to the proposal that youíre commenting on. Then, with just a few clicks, you and everyone else involved could examine all the important cross-references in the proposal.
The Internet Explorer
The World Wide Web is the most visible aspect of the Internet. Thousands of companies and individuals all over the world publish millions of pages on the Web every day. By itself, this huge mass of information would be totally indigestible and virtually unusable. What makes it useful and interesting are the embedded hypertext links to other Web pages.
With a Web browser you can navigate the Web, jumping from page to page by clicking on these links. HTML is the standard language for specifying these links, which can be read on a Web page by a number of browsers. However, Microsoft has its own fully functional browser, the Internet Explorer 2.0, which has the advantages of fully integrating with Microsoft® Windows® 95 and The Microsoft Network (MSN). It is also available for Windows 3.x, Windows NT and the Apple Macintosh. And, if youíve got Windows 95, itís free.
The Internet Explorer not only lets you browse the Web, it enables you to access the Internetís ënewsgroupsí where you can communicate with experts on any subject you care to mention, from sub-atomic physics to rose growing. You donít have to be an Internet expert to get at these areas, either. The Explorerís toolbar will take you to the newsgroups or the search engines with the click of a button.
Explorer 2.0 also exploits Microsoftís proposed extensions to the HTML standards such as advanced multimedia and 3D graphics. It is also fully compatible with existing Web standards supported by other Web browsers, such as Netscapeís Navigator.
Until recently, all you could do with the available Internet and Web software was look at pages and navigate them. Now a new aspect has been developed: you can add scripts to Web pages to make them do more interesting things. One way to think about this is to consider how limited Microsoft® Visual Basic® would be without the Visual Basic language.
All you could do would be to produce forms and menus and then add text to the forms. With the addition of a few special controls you could maybe create a few links between pages. But without the flexibility of attaching code to controls and forms, the resulting application would not be very useful.
This is almost exactly analogous to the current situation with Web pages. Using HTML, you can make them look nice, display pictures and link them to other pages. There are even some special HTML commands that allow you to input text for a search engine. But itís all fairly simple stuff. Imagine what you could do with Visual Basic in there
The development tools available are covered in the feature Developing for the Internet, on pages 11 and 12. There youíll see that Microsoft has covered virtually the whole arena from Visual Basic to Internet servers.
Itís not much use having Web browsers and client software
unless youíve got something to use them on. While the Internet
Web browsers may be the most obvious part, there is a huge part
that isnít visible. Much of this involves the physical
hardware connecting your PC to the Internet communication channels.
At the end of all the fibre optic cables, message-routing computers
and telephone exchanges lies the source of all Web pages ñ
the Web servers.
Internet Information Server
A Web server is to the Web what a file server is to a local area network. It stores Web pages on disk ready for a request for a page and sends out the pages when requested. Microsoft views Web servers simply as file servers that source Web pages, and acting as a ësourceí is exactly what Microsoft® Windows NT Server is designed to do ñ efficiently and at low cost.
The first Web servers were, like all original Internet machines, UNIX-based. But recently, Web server operators have found it simpler (and far cheaper) to use Windows NT Servers.
Now, as part of its Internet suite of products, Microsoft has produced the Internet Information Server, an industrial-strength Web platform, easy both to program and to manage. It is available as part of Windows NT or as a free download from the Internet.
The Internet Information Server runs
on Windows NT Server as a standard service.
This means that for low-volume servers, you donít have to have a separate machine to run your Web pages. Consider a small company
that wants to advertise its product catalogue
on the Internet. All it would need to do is
install the Internet Information Server on
the same machine running its Microsoft® BackOffice system.
After a simple exercise with Word and the Internet Assistant,
the company would have its catalogue on the Web.
Exchange Server
The concept of the World Wide Web and its hypertext links is a powerful one. In fact, as Bill Gates has pointed out, itís often easier to find information on the Web than it is on your companyís local area network. But while hypertext links are important for navigating information, they are of little value in determining how the data should be stored. Consider the earlier example of using the Internet Assistant with Word to create hypertext links between memos to comment on a sales proposal. This is fine to use, but where will the files be stored? Itís not a great deal of use having a link to a non-existent document.
This is where Microsoft® Exchange Server comes in. Exchange
Server implements a configurable ëdocument-centricí
view of an organisationís data ñ itís halfway
between the free flowing anarchy of hypertext links and the rigid,
inflexible structure of an SQL database. Additionally, it can
distribute or replicate this data to remote sites, be they manufacturing
plants or transcontinental offices. But the power of Exchange
Server lies in its ability to store groups of documents, spreadsheets,
email and presentations in a manner that is meaningful to an organisation.
With it, you can define information ëstoresí that
enable you to collect everything related to a particular topic
ñ the imaginary sales proposal, say. Moreover, you can
control the access to those documents, and, with the Internet
Assistant and Internet Explorer, you can make navigation of those
documents a simple and natural affair.
Merchant Server
Complementary to the Internet Information Server and the Exchange Server is the Merchant Server. This is a tool kit ñ a set of components that you can use to build an information store customised to your needs. It will have components that deal with capturing orders for goods and services over the Internet and routing these orders to the right place for order fulfilment.
Most importantly, the Merchant Server will be able to connect to legacy systems using Windows NT SNA services. This is vital because a companyís financial and accounting systems are often on IBM AS/400 systems.
The server tool kit approach opens up a new area for Microsoft.
It will allow third-party ësystem integratorsí access
to the information flows within a company. The system integrators
will be able to produce value added systems building on the basic
components of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange Server and
other Microsoft® BackOffice products.
The big picture
Much of the current Internet hype focuses on the home entertainment value of the Internet: the fun of ësurfingí Web pages, joining in newsgroups and using the Internet as a vast public library, digging for information. Certainly, there is fun to be had, but thereís a more serious, commercial side to the Internet as well.
Currently, businesses spend a huge amount of money on communications and infrastructure to provide communications. With a secure and reliable Internet, much of this expense can be eliminated.
In his Internet presentation with Bill Gates on 7 December 1995, Paul Maritz, Group Vice President, Platforms, commented on the possibility of using the Internet to replace Microsoftís own global communication network. He said Microsoft, ìshould be able to get rid of the bulk of that [communications] infrastructure and use the Internet as our corporate public or wide area networkî.
Maritz was pointing out that the Internet has the capability of being a powerful business tool ñ in fact, a mission critical business tool. There are two aspects to using the Internet for business purposes. The first is the underlying information transport technology, that is getting data reliably from, say, London to New York in a short space of time. The other is making sure that the data is secure. Only when the Internet is secure will it be possible to make cash transactions over it.
Once these areas are properly sorted out, and Microsoft is actively involved with the standards bodies that are defining these areas, then it will be possible to use the Internet as a commercial value added medium.
By just looking at the array of products and the technology, you
can see that Microsoft believes the Internet as a whole is not
just as a clever way of presenting data. It is a fundamental enabling
technology for both the corporation and the individual.
The Internet for pedestrians
The Internet is really a fancy name for a global computer communications system. But whatís so special about that? Well, the strange thing about the Internet is that itís largely self-organising. No government is involved and there are very few committees grinding away in the background. It started about 20 years ago with the US Defense Department funding a few American universities to build a computer communications network.
Gradually, different groups of people, and foreign universities and research institutions, joined in. News groups and email became standard across the world academic community. Then three things happened that caused the current explosion. First, powerful PCs became readily available at a reasonable cost. Second, the cost of telecommunications dropped rapidly and both modems and telephone lines became far cheaper to rent and use.
With these in place, the conditions were right for the third thing ñ the World Wide Web. This was the spark that ignited the Internet. The World Wide Web was conceived by workers at the European Nuclear Research Centre, CERN, as a method of linking together different bits of research information in the computerís memory. However, it soon found its way onto PCs and then the Internet really took off. For the first time, people who were not technically expert or connected with university research departments could use the Internet in a simple manner.
However, there are other parts to the Internet as well as the
Web. There are newsgroups where you can discuss things of general
interest. For example, rec.gardens, is the place to ask questions
(and receive answers) on anything from organic onion production
to cactus propagation. Then there are more specialised ëmailing
listsí which you have to request a (usually free) subscription
to. Building telescopes, for example. By subscribing to the Amateur
Telescope Makers mailing list, you can get expert advice on every
aspect of building your own telescope. Finally, thereís
email ñ you can write to a friend in Australia or complain
about your local train service, all without using a postage stamp!
Internet jargon
As with anything new, youíll find that thereís a whole new set of words invented to describe things relating to the Internet. Here are some of the more common expressions and acronyms.
The World Wide Web, or simply the Web: A collection of pages connected by ëhypertextí links. This is the most visible part of the Internet.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. HTML allows text to include codes that define fonts, layout, embedded graphics and hypertext links.
Hypertext: Text that is cross-referenced to other text using invisible links. Itís a powerful way to organise information. ëHypermediaí can contain pictures, sounds and video.
Browser: a software package for reading Web pages and navigating the Webís hypertext links.
Hyperlink: a hypertext instruction that tells the browser where to find the next page.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator: the address of an object (Web page
or file) on the Internet.
graphics:
The Explorerís ëhomeí page is initially the
Microsoft Web site. This contains a huge amount of information
on Microsoftís Internet products and strategy, from high-level
overviews to detailed descriptions of the OLE software architecture.
The home page is at http://www.microsoft.com.
Using the search button, you can use the Microsoft search engine
to track down any subject under the sun on the Internet. Just
type in the subjects youíre interested in and sit back
while the engine scours the planet for information.
1 The text ëAndrew Marvellí has been marked with a
hyperlink (a Word bookmark) that will point to a footnote about
the author. The link could, of course, be to another document
or to a real Web page (URL).
2 Now weíll insert a simple graphic ñ just a multicoloured
line. You can insert graphics or indeed any other object here
as well. If youíre just going to use the Internet Assistant
and Word, you could insert an OLE object such as an Excel spreadsheet
instead.
3 Here you can see the HTML source of the footnote reference and
how it looks when itís displayed by the Internet Assistant.
You can see why it gets described as ëhieroglyphicsí.
4 Finally, hereís a view of the page displayed using the
Internet Assistant and Word, with a view of exactly the same page
displayed by the Internet Explorer.
The Microsoft
Network
There is one big problem with the Internet ñ connecting to the thing in the first place. This can be a daunting prospect which involves fiddling around with modems and installing the Internet software. Somewhere, in the chain between your browser, your email program, the operating system, the modem, the telephone and the Internet service provider, something is bound to go wrong and when it does, finding out what can be tricky.
Microsoft has stepped in with a one-stop service for Internet users ñ The Microsoft® Network (MSN). Connection software for MSN comes as standard with Windows 95. When you install Windows 95, you can add the MSN icon to your desktop. Clicking on this will take you through the steps of registering on MSN quickly and simply. If you do have a problem, you can always telephone the MSN help desk for assistance (0800 750 800).
To access the Internet via MSN, members need to download the Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 from the Internet Center on MSN and select their connection as ëInternet access and The Microsoft Networkí from The Microsoft Network properties dialogue (selected by right-clicking on the Microsoft Network Icon). Once on MSN, youíll find that itís integrated with your usual Microsoft Mail program and with the Internet Explorer. The point is, you donít have to configure a Web browser or struggle with your Internet service providerís connection software, because itís done for you ñ and it all works as smoothly as only an integrated environment can.
As soon as youíre on MSN, youíll realise that it provides much more than plain Internet access to the Web and newsgroups. Thereís also a large amount of extra ëcontentí provided on top of the basic Internet connectivity.
When you log on to MSN, youíll see the MSN Central banner. This is the routing ëhubí to all of MSNís areas. You can get back to this quickly and easily by clicking on the MSN desktop icon if you get lost. MSNís major areas are the Internet, comprising the World Wide Web and newsgroups, MSN News and Categories, which are specially selected areas of MSN and the Internet.
MSN and the Web
You can use MSN as a single jumping off point for the World Wide Web. When you connect to MSN, you connect not only to MSNís bulletin boards and discussion groups but to the underlying Internet as well. By clicking on the Internet area of the MSN start page, you start the Internet Explorer. Since youíre already logged onto MSN, you donít have to do anything further to connect to the Internet.
Because youíre still within MSN when you run the Explorer,
you can use MSN at the same time as looking around the Internet.
This is a big plus, since youíll find that ësurfingí
the Web isnít quite as dynamic as it sounds, especially
when trying to access some of the more heavily-used Web sites.
But you donít have to sit idle while you wait for Web pages
ñ you can browse the MSN and see whatís going on
locally too.
Depending on your circumstances, you may find that email is a large part of your Internet activities. The ability to send a message to someone in Australia or New Zealand from Europe and get a reply within an hour might seem like magic at first. But itís amazing how quickly you will take things like that for granted. Soon, youíll wonder why the Post Office bothers with letters. The really great thing is that it can all be done with the cost of a local phone call.
Email is integrated into MSN via The Microsoft® Exchange
Client. This is the front end to the Exchange Server, used for
storing things like documents, as described above. If youíve
got access to the Exchange Server, youíll be able to store
your email in data ëstoresí that you can define for
this purpose. You can share these stores with others in your group
or organisation if you wish.
Guidebooks
Thereís one thing that Internet enthusiasts donít tell you when trying to convert you to the lifestyle-enhancing benefits of the Web. If the entire planet is there for searching, how on earth do you find anything useful? Although information on the Web is linked together to provide some form of organisation, you still need something to provide a focus for browsing ñ a set of starting points, if you like.
Thatís what MSN Guidebooks aim to do. They are a cross between a multimedia magazine and a Web directory. The magazine part gets updated regularly and several computer magazines now provide weekly content for MSNís Computer Guidebook. In the future, Microsoft will provide Guidebooks for a number of Web areas. Some of these will be of worldwide interest, such as the World Cup, Wimbledon or the Grand Prix.
There will be interviews and live chat sessions with stars like Andre Agassi. Many more will be local, like a Web Guidebook to London Theatres, for example.
MSN categories
MSN presents a simple view of the Internet, dividing it up into
broad categories, such as Business and Finance, each of which
has its own MSN discussion section and bulletin board. They also
have pointers into the Web through the Guidebooks, general discussions
and useful features. Two of the features that are used the most
are Auctions and Chat.
Buying and selling
One of the most interesting parts of MSN is the ëauctioní
rooms to be found in several of the MSN category areas. If youíve
got something to sell ñ say an unwanted present, an old
computer or even a car ñ you can put a message, using email,
in one of the special auction room bulletin boards. On the other
hand, if you see something you are interested in buying, send
an email to the vendor and get the haggling process started.
Chat
As you enter MSN, youíll see advertisements for online chat sessions for special interests, such as health or DIY, where you can put questions to experts. The chats are ëmoderatedí by MSN representatives who keep order and referee the talks. You can discuss problems and areas of interest with other MSN members, who are not necessarily experts, and who may have some helpful advice.
Because these chat sessions are organised on a regular basis, at a set time, youíll find there are a number of regular members who tend to get involved, and that the sessions are well-attended. Additionally, you may find that keeping an eye on a chat session while youíre searching the Web is a good way of maximising the benefit of your MSN session. Remember, with MSN you donít just have to do one thing at a time.
Advertised chats are generally local to the time zone that they
run in. For example, if a chat is scheduled to take place at 9pm
GMT, it is therefore 4pm in New York and 1pm in Los Angeles, which
does make a difference. After all, neither of these times are
good for a relaxing discussion on the finer points of Harley Davidson
motorcycles.
MSN for all seasons
As you will have gathered from this brief tour of MSN, thereís
a lot to discover. The most important thing to remember is that
itís easy to set up and use. With the aid of the MSN installation
Wizard and a few mouse clicks, youíll be connected to a
useful and friendly Internet environment. MSN organises and presents
the Internet and the World Wide Web so that businesses, families
and individuals can make use of its enormous potential. Enough
reading about it ñ try it out! M
graphics:
The MSN Central page acts as a routing centre for the whole MSN
service. You can get to the Internet, check your mail, browse
the MSN bulletin boards and look at the MSN Internet Guidebooks.
Hereís a good example of the local UK content in MSN ñ
ranging from information about the Edinburgh Festival to a lively
correspondence on the shortcomings of the BBC and ITV.
As well as standard email messages, The Microsoft Network offers chat sessions where you can join in lively debates and advice workshops with experts on all manner of subjects.