***Conference Report - Microsoft Tech-Ed
by David Lohse

Microsoft's Tech-Ed Conference, held in Orlando from May 5-9, was targeted
primarily at (Microsoft-based) enterprise-level engineers and managers,
offering a week's worth of courses on related topics. In addition,
Microsoft also revealed some of their current initiatives and delved
further into upcoming technologies.

Keynote - Bill Gates

Of course the primary keynote for the conference was delivered by Bill
Gates, and it was received by a packed audience. In it Mr. Gates outlined
in broad terms the current directions being taken by Microsoft, without
going into any specific details. While Microsoft's theme of 1996 was the
Internet, in 1997 their theme is "manageability and scalability," important
topics that were stressed by Microsoft throughout the conference. These
concepts take several forms in the current and emerging technologies,
including the Zero Admin Windows initiative (which will allow network
administrators and technical support to configure and maintain PCs with
little or no effort) and the growing support for COM ("object technology
has finally arrived").

If one theme is to be pulled from Mr. Gate's keynote and the conference in
general it is Microsoft's push for "scalability." Now that Windows has
effectively conquered the consumer desktop, Microsoft is attempting to
promote the Windows platform as scalable across all levels. This was
demonstrated in a diagram that was shown repeatedly throughout the
conference which displayed Windows operating at the lowest levels (Windows
CE on handheld devices) up to the enterprise (Windows NT in clustered
servers). At the same time he was promoting the scalability of Windows, Mr.
Gates dismissed the viability of the so-called "Network PC", which he
claimed would make developers re-write all of their old code, while Windows
on the other hand will allow an evolutionary movement using past
investments.

Also outlined in the speech were several forthcoming technologies that were
discussed in more detail during conference sessions, such as Dynamic HTML
and Windows NT 5.0.


Windows NT 5.0

The new features and functionality in Windows NT 5.0 were the topic of
several important sessions during the conference. Again the themes of
manageability and scalability were emphasized and are the focus of several
new features. NT 5.0 will use Active Directory, which will combine DNS,
X.500 and LDAP functionality to create a simpler and easier-to-use
directory of network resources. In conjunction with the Microsoft
Management Console, the management of an NT network will reportedly be much
less complex.

Regarding scalability, the main feature supported in NT 5.0 will be
clustering, which will allow multiple servers to work in conjunction on a
network. Currently present in Microsoft's Wolfpack software now in testing,
up to 2 nodes (servers) are supported under NT 4.0, 4 nodes will be
supported under NT 5.0, and up to 16 nodes will be supported under NT 5.0
by 1998.

Other features found in NT 5.0 include OnNow, which lets desktop computers
enter a very low power "sleep"-like mode similar to laptop computers; the
new ACPI systems interface, which will use standard OS driver to control
system board configuration and power management; the Common Internet File
Service (CIFS) which will all networks to transparently store files and
folders at different locations; the Zero Admin Windows environment which
will allow users to access the same operating environment from different
workstations.


Dynamic HTML

Dynamic HTML is Microsoft's attempt to develop the "next-generation" of
HTML. DHTML offers many new capabilities over the current HTML 3.0
standard, bringing dynamic content without the need for external interfaces
such as CGI or Java. Many new effects can easily be added to Web pages,
such as the ability to place images anywhere on the page (without tables)
and hot tracking (effects depending on the mouse position).

Dynamic Content allows the actual content of a page to be changed on the
fly without using external resources. As an example, a simple diagram of an
office allowed the user to interactively move furniture about, a page which
was claimed to only consume several kilobytes. Data Binding, another
feature of DHTML, brings data locally to the PC for sorting or other
manipulation - an example was a spreadsheet that could be sorted on the
client without having to refer back to the server.

Multimedia features offered by DHTML include structured (vector) graphics,
the ability to overlay graphics with a Z-buffer-like effect, alpha
channels, various filters (waves, fades, etc.) and sprite control.

DHTML is based on an Object Model rather the linear style used by
conventional HTML. Using this model, both style and content are made
dynamic. It was stressed by Microsoft, however, that the Object Model is
not a new set of tags - it is rather a new way to code HTML.

Microsoft is pushing Dynamic HTML as a standard, and both DHTML and the
Object Model have been submitted to the W3C for consideration.


Wave Issue 9712 5/21/97 Article 8-01