By Jim Forbes
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It's become a truism that while the Internet gets all the attention,
intranets are where the action is-and in Microsoft's case, that
means introducing free products that build on ActiveX, its newest
entry in the software development arena. The company has outlined
its plans to capitalize on the growing deployment of intranets
and unveiled a variety of new technologies, including those that
will debut later this year in products such as Office 97 and new
iterations of Internet Explorer. They'll start to hit store shelves
later this year.
In what might be seen as a preemptive move, Microsoft has borrowed
some technology from a forthcoming product, NetMeeting, and added
it to Internet Explorer 3.0, which is slated to ship this summer.
NetMeeting, which is aimed at the data conferencing market, is
being touted as one of the first Microsoft applications to use
ActiveX technology.
Meanwhile, Internet Explorer 4.0 (developed under several code
names, including Nashville) will incorporate ActiveX technology
and allow users to build custom programs that call on a variety
of other applications-some of them possibly residing on enterprise
networks, intranets or even the Internet. According to the company,
these offerings, now labeled "active desktop" applications,
could be out in the marketplace as early as next year.