MS Serious About Corporate Intranet Push

SEATTLE--In an afternoon address at the Microsoft Internet Strategy briefing earlier today, company officials stressed their intention to capture the corporate intranet market.

According to Pete Higgins, group vice president of applications and content, business users will increasingly rely on company intranets to exchange product planning data, budgets, proposals, customer tracking, and sales analyses.

"It's far easier to find obscure information on the Net than it is to locate a coworker's document at most companies," said Higgins. "The intranet approach works better than LANs."

To change this situation, business users at companies using predominantly Microsoft software may in the future rely on Net-enhanced versions of applications, such as Office and Publisher, to post intranet documents.