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 newstuff@microsoft.com |
| Theresa W. Carey
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As this column crept into the wrap-up stages, your New Stuff columnist got word of MIND and MSJ Editor Eric Maffei's retirement. I'll miss you, big guy! I'd detail my fonder memories of going to trade shows with Eric over the last eight years, but I still haven't told my husband about most of them. So they'll have to remain out of print. (Psst, Eric, do you still have that video?) Besides the usual great Web development tools I bring to your attention, this month I'll also point out some interesting studies related to online business. The Bookshelf
Intended for developers with reasonable experience with either VBScript or JScript®, the book is fully up-to-date with the latest innovations in its subject area. It covers WSH version 2, VBScript and JScript version 5, and Windows Script Components. Check out the details at http://www.wrox.com/consumer/Store/Details.asp? ISBN=1861002653. Dino has also set up a Web site for Visual Basic, VB-2-The-Max. Point your browser to http://www.vb2themax.com for the latest Visual Basic®tips, routines, and bug reports. Zap those Bugz!
Visual Bugz integrates into most software development suites, including Visual Basic, Visual C++®, Visual Objects, the Java language, Delphi, and Powerbuilder, as well as source code control systems like Visual SourceSafe™. Using the ODBC architecture, Visual Bugz has the capability to use most back-end databases, from Microsoft®Access to SQL Server™and Oracle. Optimize Digital Solutions Sales Automation for the Mid-market
Entice! provides tools for customer prospecting, customer profiling, campaign management, electronic marketing, and promotion techniques. The Account Manager module provides support for complex selling efforts and gives everyone in the organization instant access to all customer information and history. Entice! also features an online sales/order desk component. This e-business software uses a series of preformatted reports and data analysis tools to assist an organization in its decisionmaking process. Key indicators are also reported in real time, providing executives with up-to-the-minute details of activities, such as Web traffic, projected online revenue, and marketing campaign effectiveness. The Entice! e-business solution includes the Entice! Server, 10 concurrent user licenses, and one administration license. Additional user licenses are available. Multiactive Software Inc. Survey Says: Mainframes Still Alive
The EMS survey found a very strong attachment among enterprise development managers toward their mainframes. Of these large corporate development managers, three-quarters were using mainframes, and of those 73 percent had no intention of migrating away from them in the future. The type of information stored on mainframes is more likely to be current data files (30 percent) or user apps (23 percent) than legacy data from years past (31 percent). The survey tracked platform configuration on the client, server, and mainframe, and by vertical industry. "The telecomm industry was strongest for mainframes with over 90 percent reporting they would retain them, while education was the most likely to migrate away." In addition to mainframe usage, the new survey studied client and server platform configurations and migration patterns, mainframes and minis in the organization, directory services, distributed architectures, intranets and VPNs, Year 2000 and development spending projections, Linux and Open Source Software in the corporation, training and certification. Industries profiled include banking/financial, healthcare, government/military, transportation/utilities and manufacturing/heavy industry. Detailed information, samples, an overview, and table of contents for this survey can be found on their Web site. Evans Marketing Services Digital Commerce versus Off-line Dollars?
The report advises that traditional merchants must build unified ventures that take advantage of their off-line assets—an existing customer base, a trusted brand name, customer data, and a sales and distribution infrastructure—or risk losing sales to Internet-only merchants. According to Jupiter's research, only 6 percent (or $720 million of the expected $11.9 billion) of online commerce in 1999 will represent incremental sales—those that would not have occurred otherwise. Jupiter estimates that the percentage of incremental sales will grow only slightly, to 6.5 percent (or $3 billion of the expected $41.01 billion) by 2002, with growth dependent on merchants' ability to target offers and promotions. Product categories, with the following characteristics will become the most likely to drive incremental sales: maturity, a low price point, high discretionary basis, high likelihood of impulse purchase, and high product counts. Internet merchants should be very concerned that Internet sales will not be incremental. Merchants' efforts to seize opportunities and use the Internet to capture new customers or increase wallet share from existing customers pale when compared with the risk that existing customers might move to online competitors. Jupiter advises merchants to combine their traditional assets with Internet assets to provide a buying experience that leverages the inherent advantages of each channel. Jupiter Communications Easy Installations
There are numerous new features, including JPEG support for installer graphics to help you advertise new features, promotions, or other benefits. Installer VISE allows you to use JPEGs rather than .bmps for billboards. MindVision also added rollback changes on cancelled installs, which will undo changes made up to the point when the user bailed out, including changes made to files, folders, registry entries, and INI file entries. The Split Path action item extracts the drive, directory, and name from a path. The results are stored in variables useful in processing Find Action results. In addition, the Visual Basic Project Wizard supports Visual Basic references so that when you include a reference in a Visual Basic project, the wizard will detect the relationship and will include all files associated with the reference. The DirectX®Check action will recognize current and future DirectX releases. This action item checks for DirectX and returns a value which indicates the version installed. To help keep installers current, the publisher posts and maintains a list of expected version values on their Web site. Installer VISE 3.1 automatically handles the registration of in-use/locked files after a restart and keeps the Add Items dialog open, which allows you to add more than one item at a time. The program now supports self-registration of type library (.tlb) files. Such files contain information about COM interfaces that they support. Fully functional evaluation copies of Installer VISE 3.1 are available from MindVision's Web site. MindVision 
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From the October 1999 issue of Microsoft Internet Developer.
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