The Microsoft Collaboration Applications Platform consists of Windows NT Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Outlook 97, SQL Server, IIS, Internet Explorer, Active Server Pages, and Microsoft Visual InterDev.
Windows NT Server Windows NT Server provides the foundation for the Collaboration Applications Platform and the BackOffice products. The BackOffice products are integrated with Windows NT Server to take advantage of its security features, stability, and scalability. All of the BackOffice products require the installation of Windows NT Server.
Microsoft Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server provides the infrastructure for building collaboration applications. Microsoft Exchange Server supports the following Internet protocols:
It also supports public folders and replication, a central Address Book, centralized administration, and security.
Microsoft Outlook 97 Microsoft Outlook provides tools for creating programming and non-programming collaboration applications. The Desktop Information Manager provided with Microsoft Outlook centralizes all communication, organization, and management of information. Microsoft Outlook supports multiple e-mail providers, scheduling, task management, keeping journals, contacts, and the creation of personal folders for storing and categorizing information.
SQL Server SQL Server is a scalable database management system designed for distributed client/server computing. Its management tools include built-in data replication and open system architecture. They provide a way to deliver collaboration applications for any size organization. SQL Server integrates with Internet applications to provide access to the World Wide Web. SQL Server can be used to store collaboration applications.
Internet Information Server (IIS) IIS simplifies improving communications and delivering Web sites. IIS is the only Web server integrated into Windows NT Server. It is powerful enough to host the world's largest Web sites, yet IIS can be used to easily create an intranet in minutes. You can combine IIS with Microsoft Index Server, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and the Microsoft FrontPage® Web authoring and management tool to make BackOffice a more powerful Internet and intranet tool.
Microsoft Internet Explorer Microsoft Internet Explorer is the collaboration cross-platform Internet client. The latest release of Internet Explorer supports Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (DHTML), Microsoft ActiveX®, Java, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) version 1.1, and more. Internet Explorer functions as a full messaging client using Microsoft Outlook Web Access, which uses IIS and Active Server Pages.
Active Server Pages Active Server Pages (ASP) is an open architecture application that does not need to be compiled. This makes it possible for users to combine HTML, scripts, and reusable ActiveX server components to create Web-based collaboration applications. ASP enables server scripting for IIS with native support for both Microsoft Visual Basic® Scripting Edition (VBScript) and Microsoft Jscript™.
ASP processes ASP scripts, which typically are files with an .asp extension. When ASP encounters regular HTML text, it does not process it, but passes it through the Active Server computer directly to the browser. When ASP encounters text within server script tags (<% and %>), it processes this script code and generates HTML, which it sends to the browser. Scripts are not stored in a compiled form. They are interpreted when the .asp file is requested from the server.
Visual InterDev Microsoft Visual InterDev is designed for developers who want to build sophisticated, dynamic Web applications. With Visual InterDev, teams of developers and nonprogrammers can collaborate on creating Web sites because Visual InterDev integrates fully with FrontPage.