NEW ORLEANS - March 29, 1999 - -Today, at the first Microsoft^® Office Deployment Conference, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's business productivity group, announced that the company has completed the development and testing of Office 2000. The suite is scheduled to be available to volume license customers in April and to be broadly available to retail customers on June 10, 1999. Microsoft also announced a new integrated deployment framework that includes tools, information, training programs and industry partners that, when coupled with the deployment capabilities in Office 2000, dramatically increases the ease and efficiency of deploying and managing Office 2000. In a show of early support among enterprise customers, Lockheed Martin Electronics and Missiles, University of Texas, J.D. Edwards & Co., and Turner Broadcasting Sales Inc. today announced their plans to deploy Office 2000.

"With this new release, Office has evolved from a standalone tool for use at individual desktops to a critical asset that empowers users to create and share information across enterprises," said Muglia. "Reflecting this broader role for Office, the new deployment and management capabilities in Office 2000 and new support resources deliver on critical enterprise needs, such as reduced total cost of ownership and seamless integration with business solutions."

Enterprise Customers Contribute to Design of Office 2000 and Deployment Resources

Enterprise customers have been involved in developing Office 2000 since the early stages through the Office Advisory Council (OAC). Among the resulting new technologies is the Custom Installation Wizard, which makes the suite easier to deploy and manage. In addition, the Office 2000 deployment resources, based on lessons learned from companies such as Lockheed Martin Electronics and Missiles, University of Texas, J.D. Edwards, and Turner Broadcasting Sales Inc., have helped develop Office 2000 deployment tools, information and education programs.

"New technologies such as the Microsoft Windows^® Installer give IT administrators more control and help lower the cost of Office 2000," said Ron V. Lord, director, management information systems, Lockheed Martin Electronics and Missiles. "The availability of tools, information, programs and partners for deploying and managing Office 2000 helps create additional business value."

Leading Solution Providers and Independent Software Vendors Support Office 2000

Independent software vendors (ISVs) and Microsoft Certified Solution Providers (MCSPs) have made this commitment to support Office 2000. They are ready to provide integrated products and solutions that will take advantage of new technologies in Office 2000, such as Office Web Components and Office Server Extensions, to help customers create business value by more effectively sharing information and analyzing data across the enterprise.

MCSPs such as Unisys Corp., Wang Global, Inacom Corp., ICL and another 1,800 MCSPs are already trained and ready to provide Office 2000 services and solutions. Furthermore, ISVs such as Oberon Software, Platinum Software Corp., Keyfile Corp. and Rational Software Corp. are building applications integrated with Office 2000.

"With its support for Web and BackOffice^® integration, Office 2000 provides a robust platform for enhanced collaboration," said Gerry Gagliardi, president of Unisys Global Customer Services. "The Unisys Office 2000 Solution provides a managed end-to-end services framework that effectively extends the lifetime value of such product features. The global availability of our solution enables the largest, most geographically dispersed organizations to count on consistent deployment and support, and to realize the promise of business benefits across the enterprise."

More information about the new deployment and management tools, information, education programs and partners can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/office/2000deploy/.

About the Office 2000 Deployment Conference

The first Office 2000 Deployment Conferences, held in New Orleans on March 29-31 and Nice, France, on April 12-14, are designed to provide IT professionals and partners with the tools, training and information they need to deploy and manage Microsoft Office 2000. The conferences will focus on new IT functionality, such as the Windows Installer technology, as well as new integration with the Microsoft BackOffice family of products, that will help midsize and large organizations to lower administration costs and realize more business value. Attendees will receive in-depth technical education from Microsoft program managers, developers and technical specialists. Attendees will also hear from industry partners that have built solutions using Microsoft Office 2000 technologies as well as from customers that have already begun deploying Office 2000.

About Office 2000

The new Microsoft Office 2000 line includes five suite options, offering a set of tools tailored for each type of Office customer. Office 2000 Premium is the most comprehensive of the suites and includes the FrontPage^® 2000 Web site creation and management tool, PhotoDraw™ 2000 business graphics software, Word 2000, Microsoft Excel 2000, the Outlook^® 2000 messaging and collaboration client, the PowerPoint^® 2000 presentation graphics program, Microsoft Access 2000, Publisher 2000, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 browser software and Microsoft Small Business Tools.

Requirements to run Office 2000 Premium are a PC with a Pentium 75 MHz or higher processor; Pentium 166 MHz or higher is required for PhotoDraw, on the Windows 95 or later operating system or Windows NT^® Workstation operating system version 4.0 Service Pack 3 or later. Users of Windows 95 or Windows 98 will require 16 MB of RAM for the operating system, plus an additional 4 MB of RAM for each application running simultaneously (8 MB for Outlook). Users of Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 or later will require 32 MB of RAM for the operating system, plus an additional 4 MB of RAM for each application running simultaneously (8 MB for Outlook). The following are the hard disk requirements for Office 2000 Premium (numbers indicate typical installation; choices made during custom installation may require more or less hard disk space):

• 252 MB for Disc 1 (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, FrontPage)
• 174 MB for Disc 2 (Publisher, Small Business Tools)
• 100 MB for Disc 3 (PhotoDraw)