COMMERCIAL NEWS

San Francisco, CALIF. — At the Enterprise 2000 Launch, Microsoft Corp. President and CEO Steve Ballmer joined with leading enterprise partners and customers to outline a new generation of industry standard hardware, software and services to run today’s most demanding enterprise applications. They also demonstrated solutions for emerging requirements that take enterprise computing beyond traditional internally focused systems to deliver deep integration with customers, industry partners and employees, any time and any place. The Microsoft .NET Platform offers companies the agility to better respond to new market opportunities and enhance profitability in the digital economy.

The Enterprise 2000 Launch includes the following products, services and industry partner announcements:

— The availability of Windows 2000 Datacenter Server-based systems from Amdahl, Bull, Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett-Packard Co., Hitachi, IBM Corp., ICL, Unisys Corp. and Stratus Computer

— The availability of eight new .NET Enterprise Servers and the introduction of Microsoft Mobile Information 2001 Server, the newest member of the .NET Enterprise Server family

— Over 100 enterprise customer wins, including recent competitive migrations from Sun and Oracle. These customers include Aventis Corp., Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Election.com, Ford Motor Co., FreeMarkets, Home Shopping Network, Honeywell Inc., Lycos, Panasonic, Pitney Bowes Inc., RadioShack, RealTech, Turner Broadcasting and the Wall Street Journal.com

— The announcement of a new 32-processor NetServer system from Hewlett-Packard for Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, joining the 32-processor offerings already announced by Compaq, ICL and Unisys

— The introduction of the Datacenter Infrastructure Vendor program to extend system integrity and choice in the datacenter, and EMC Corp. as the first vendor to become authorized under this program

— Integration2000, a Compaq and Microsoft initiative for developing and promoting XML-centric, BizTalk Server 2000-based, next-generation enterprise integration services and solutions

— An even deeper alliance between Commerce One and Microsoft, with Commerce One’s new marketplace infrastructure optimized for the .NET Platform and running on the .NET Enterprise Servers

— Supplier Advantage, a new offering from Dell and Microsoft to help suppliers accelerate the process of connecting to business-to-business marketplaces

— The introduction of Terraserver as a programmable Web service running on the latest Compaq ProLiant eGeneration data center technology – and its use by the United States Department of Agriculture for natural resource and land management.

Joining Ballmer on stage were industry leaders Steve James, COO of Andersen Consulting; Mark Hoffman, CEO of Commerce One; Michael Capellas, CEO of Compaq; Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corp.; Hasso Plattner, CEO of SAP AG; and Larry Weinbach, CEO of Unisys Corp. These industry leaders discussed how the .NET Platform is giving their customers greater business agility.

“Today’s announcements represent the culmination of 12 years of work by Microsoft to build software, services and partnerships for the enterprise,” Ballmer said. “With Windows 2000 Datacenter Server and the .NET Enterprise Server family, we have shown clearly that we have the scalability, reliability, availability and manageability required to run the biggest businesses in the world. The products and services announced today recognize and anticipate the changing enterprise landscape, where business agility and the use of information technology to drive revenue and profit growth have become as important as the traditional ‘abilities.’ These products and industry partnerships leapfrog the competition and will enable enterprise customers to adapt quickly to demonstrate the agility required by the digital economy.”

Ballmer and the industry panel discussed the transformation occurring in the enterprise. Today’s CIOs are shifting from an internal, operational focus to an external focus where they are expected to contribute to their company’s bottom line through the projection of the core business into the digital economy. Microsoft believes that to not only survive but to thrive in a time of intense business and technological change, enterprises need a new level of agility to get to market faster, swiftly react and adapt to a constantly changing marketplace and perform deep yet flexible integration with customers and partners.

“Gartner sees the impact of e-business causing more focus on global-class rather than enterprise-class computing,” said David Smith, vice president and research director at Gartner. “.NET positions Microsoft as a leader in providing solutions for global-class efforts.”

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, the most recent addition to the Windows family of servers, and the complementary Windows Datacenter Program, bring together the reliability of closed-box, proprietary systems with the economics of industry-standard hardware.

“While we have worked with a variety of vendors in the past, we have standardized on the Microsoft and Compaq platform because we were looking for accelerated time to market and value,” said Scott Mitchell, chief technology officer at Home Shopping Network. “We redesigned our entire Web site from the ground up in under 45 days and achieved dramatic improvements in our ability to react to market changes while also realizing tangible economic benefits. We also experienced gains in performance, scalability and reliability, and are completely satisfied with the solution built on the combined Microsoft and Compaq platform.”

Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers are a comprehensive family of server applications for quickly building, deploying and managing integrated, Web-based solutions. Designed to deliver mission-critical performance, .NET Enterprise Servers are built from the ground up to provide the foundation for next-generation XML-enabled applications. The new servers include the following:

— Application Center 2000, the deployment and management tool for high-availability “scale out” Web solutions built on Windows 2000

— BizTalk Server 2000, an integrated, XML-based solution for orchestrating business processes and Web services within and between organizations

— Commerce Server 2000, the fastest solution for building an online business

— Exchange 2000 Server, a reliable messaging and collaboration solution for bringing users and knowledge together

— Host Integration Server 2000, integration components to bridge next-generation enterprise solutions to existing host systems

— Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000, an integrated firewall and Web caching solution built to make the Web-enabled enterprise more secure, more scalable and more manageable

— SQL Server 2000, the complete database and analysis solution for rapidly delivering scalable Web applications

— Mobile Information 2001 Server, a new product that provides communications carriers and enterprise customers with a rich platform for securely delivering real-time mobile data services. Mobile Information Server is designed to integrate into multiple back-end data sources, including the .NET Enterprise Servers, as well as provide a platform for future mobile applications such as speech or wireless instant messaging.

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, SQL Server 2000, Exchange 2000 Server and Host Integration Server 2000 will be available later this fall. BizTalk Server 2000, Application Center 2000, Commerce Server 2000 and Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 are expected to be available by the end of the year. Mobile Information 2001 Server will be available in 2001.

To meet increasing customer demand for world-class solutions, Microsoft has increased its investment with enterprise partners and in enterprise services offerings and is sharing responsibility for customer success. Microsoft has introduced enterprise services frameworks with service, operations and management offerings to industry partners and customers that helps ensure rapid, predictable deployment of key enterprise-class solutions.

Microsoft is directly engaging with customers on large-scale projects and utilizing industry resources and skills to ensure global deployment and operations of Enterprise 2000 server-based solutions. These Microsoft consulting and support services will generate approximately $1 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year, driven by more than 2,000 consulting projects, more than 1,000 Premier/Alliance support contracts and more than 60,000 Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers at global systems integrators. Visit http://www.microsoft.com for more information.

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