Phase 2: Integrated Internet Clients and Servers (Extend)

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Phase 2: Integrated Internet Clients and Servers (Extend)
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bet | 23/27 | Sana | 19.03.2017 | Hajmi | 3,19 Mb. | | #225 |
Phase 2: Integrated Internet Clients and Servers (Extend)
Once we deliver core Internet connectivity technologies with the base system, it becomes easier to exploit the infostructure to win the mind- and marketshare of the Internet community. Providing the base connectivity technologies will enable Windows to become less of a stranger to users the Internet quickly and will accelerate development efforts in research/academia. We also buy the necessary time to shake out these new technologies, understand what users want from the Internet, and understand the trends more effectively. In this phase, we make Windows the choice system of the Internet by embracing the current technology and integrating these standard tools and services with our base products.
Although the strategy for this phase requires participation and input from many Microsoft teams there are some obvious opportunities for integration to exploit. Internet mail and Usenet should be integrated with our Capone and EMS products. The Explorer is a natural fit with technologies like FTP and gopher which present users with filesystem-like organization of rich documents. Web viewers are not totally unlike our WinHelp or Multimedia viewer tools. When the next generation of Windows include support for standard Internet protocols, the Internet becomes a natural extension of the Windows end-user experience, and the favored way to explore. With the interest in information systems and global connectivity in the K-12 area, the Internet carrot can help us grow the Windows market where the Macintosh is the favored choice today. Unless Novell repositions, these efforts, coupled with TCP/IP in-the-box will infringe on their extremely successful LAN Workplace for DOS TCP/IP product.
Integration will help us win the mindshare of new Internet clients, but in order to win the mindshare of current Internet users and server administrators, we will need to round out our server-side offerings to include other technologies like gopher, and WWW. The content-based query technology in Cairo is a natural fit to service WAIS and Z39.50 queries over the Internet as well.
Many of these efforts would appear to overlap with the goals of the Marvel project, I view the two efforts as complementary. It is very important for Marvel to determine a plan of action for Internet connectivity. Although it is possible to build a parallel network with some simple gateways (such as CompuServe and America Online offer), the Internet is already a global village with an incredible user base. With 2 million hosts growing at 5+% per month, MarvelNet is going to have a hard time competing with the growth of the Internet. I believe the most practical approach is to embrace these users and to use the wire that they’re already on to acquire their business. Providing access in this fashion will be viewed by many users as competitive benefit over other information providers that only offer basic gateway functionality to the Internet.
Marvel should (at least) be the central provider of any Microsoft support content (e.g., updates, KnowledgeBase, and so forth). We should provide customers with the choice to access this information by either dialing in to the private MarvelNet directly, or to come in via the Internet. When the MS-DOS 6.2 upgrade was available on CompuServe, but not on the Internet, we received hundreds of e-mail messages demanding Internet access to the upgrade as well. Many customers love our Internet support, and barely tolerate CompuServe. We need to use this to our advantage to offer support to the widest range of customers while eliminating the overhead of maintaining multiple support areas.
Action Items (additional action items will shake out of the cross-team plan recommended in the previous phase): -
Complement existing support to include integrated support for standard protocols
Offer integrated client support with the Explorer, Capone, Viewer and others as appropriate
Round out Windows NT server offering to include support for gopher and WWW
Integrate WAIS/Z39.50 query technology with Cario content indexing capabilities
Investigate WWW authoring capabilities with next version of Multimedia Toolkit or as WinWord macros
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Leverage new technologies to provide support for Microsoft customers w/ Internet access
Provide gopher access to ftp.microsoft.com
Index and format KnowledgeBase articles for simple browsing via WWW
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Enhance employee access to the Internet as a research tool
Bring Internet research capabilities to users’ desktops with firewall/SIAM extension technology (productize this)
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Consolidate PSS and Marvel support by offering Internet access to Marvel
Free services should be available via FTP and gopher
Full Marvel services should be available using the Internet as the wire
Get Marvel team involved with ongoing commerce efforts such as IMP (the Internet Mercantile Protocol)
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