Microsoft's hard sell
comes to isles
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Steve Gardner, Microsoft's Hawaii account manager, makes a pitch for the company's new products before 800 local businesspeople yesterday at a trade show at the Sheraton Waikiki.

Executives of the software giant hold the company's first large show in Hawaii

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

An audience of about 800 Honolulu business computer users took a high-tech trip through Microsoft Corp.'s latest software goodies.

And although the ride got a bit bumpy at times - microphones that wouldn't cooperate and an Internet video conference demonstration that didn't connect - the show yesterday provided many attendees with their first peek at Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, a test version of the new browser that Internet users are being invited to try.

Microsoft executives said the morning-long session at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel marked the first time the software giant had come to the islands for a big-audience showing of its suite of applications.

John Yao, who holds the title of Microsoft "architectural engineer," showed off the software, which was unveiled over a month ago.

What makes it different from earlier versions is that it completely integrates the Internet and the desktop and just about everything else in the computer that's using it, according to Yao.

He showed, for example, how someone browsing the Internet with the new software can instantly access the computer's hard drive, pull out files, turn them into World Wide Web home pages and swap information in seconds among Microsoft's word processing, spreadsheet and Internet programs.

Steve Gardner, Microsoft's San Diego-based Hawaii account manager, said the company's thrust is built on the premise that everything in future computing will involve communications such as the Internet.

Gardner and Yao also demonstrated Office 97, Microsoft's integrated software for businesses that provides rapid interchange between Internet Explorer (a new office assistant program that has dozens of ways to manage files and personal scheduling), FrontPage 97 (a Web-page design system), Microsoft Word, Excel and other programs.

Besides amusing asides, such as ordering pizza from an animated talking genie - who at first interpreted "Hawaiian" as "no ham" but quickly understood a correction - it was a serious demonstration that the Microsoft people said showed the company's readiness to meet fast changes.

One example, Gardner said, is the Intranet, a secure way for businesses to have their personnel interconnect and give each other instant access to real-time information, such as corporate sales, financial performance or product inventory.

Sealed from outsiders, the Intranet gives codeword-authorized personnel immediate information anywhere in the world through the Internet.

From there Gardner went to Extranet, which gives authorized outsiders, such as customers, controlled access to some of the same information or whatever a business wants to show them.

NetMeeting, the one that didn't connect, allows voice and picture communication among any parties, scattered anywhere in the world, the company said.

The demonstrators said the glitch was likely due to inclusion early in the demonstration of the talking genie, which was a "beta" edition, meaning a test model. Such new programs often cause conflicts that are discovered in the test stage and are corrected before commercial shipment of the software.