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MSFT unveils "BizTalk"
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March 4, 1999: 3:24 p.m. ET
Eyeing hot e-commerce biz, Microsoft announces initiative to set new standard
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Microsoft Corp. Thursday unveiled "BizTalk," a new initiative to set a unified standard for electronic commerce as part of a full-throttle expansion into the hot online shopping market.
Based on the Internet standard known as extensible markup language, BizTalk will help software communicate in a variety of computer platforms.
The unveiling, which took place at a conference in San Francisco, was one of a flurry of e-commerce-related announcements by Microsoft Thursday.
The software giant unveiled a venture with MasterCard International and Clarus Corp. (CLRS), a provider of business software via the Web, to help make corporate purchases on the Internet easier.
And Microsoft said it will purchase CompareNet Inc., a San Francisco-based comparison-shopping service on the Internet, for an undisclosed sum. CompareNet will be rolled into the MSN Sidewalk online guide.
Microsoft now talking online biz
BizTalk amounts to a key acknowledgment by Microsoft, which has lagged behind rivals such as IBM Corp. (IBM) and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) in the e-commerce arena, that commercial activity is moving online.
Until recently, companies have had difficulty conducting business over the Internet because there hasn't been a single technical vocabulary to unite business processes, said Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief executive.
"If you have a buyer, who likes to buy in a certain way, and a seller who wants to sell in a certain way, how do you match those things? They are not necessarily going to be running the same applications, all you know is they connect through the Internet," he said.
Many web retailers, such as Amazon.com (AMZN), write their own software to carry out business transactions.
The roll-out is seen as an enhancement of Microsoft's Commerce solutions and includes three new product offerings that help businesses to manage and set up e-commerce sites.
Those products - BizTalk Server, a new Commerce Server, and its Small Business Commerce Services will be available in beta version starting this summer, Gates said in his presentation.
SAP AG, the big German software concern, has announced its support for BizTalk - to set up a common vocabulary for customers.
"In one way or another, we have to synchronize the language of systems," said Hasso Plattner, SAP's co-chairman and chief executive officer, in an address to the gathering in San Francisco.
Microsoft said it has worked with many technology companies to develop the BizTalk standard, including 1-800-FLOWERS, Best Buy, Dell Computer and PeopleSoft.
The initiative will build on Windows NT Server, Microsoft's business platform, which has come under a hailstorm of attention due to a growing acceptance of rival system Linux.
Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) were up 5/8 at 155-1/4 in afternoon Nasdaq trade Thursday.
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