The Internet worldwide computer network is taking millions of users to places that a few years ago could only be dreamed about. If you have a personal computer and access to the Internet, you are globally connected. Imagine chatting online with a friend in any city over an Internet "phone" link, using the World Wide Web to browse through the archives of the Vatican, listening to a live radio broadcast from overseas, or browsing the shelves of a downtown bookstore without leaving your home. At any given time on the Internet, you are only a few mouse clicks away from resources that can be around the corner or in the most remote regions of the world.

Microsoft has been keenly aware of the Internet explosion over the past couple of years, particularly the World Wide Web. For that reason, Internet links and Web access have now become an integral part of the company's current products and support services. They are also a major part of its plans for the future.

According to Microsoft CEO and co-founder Bill Gates, in his recent speech at the Microsoft Internet Strategy Workshop, the Internet is now a central focus of all major products the company is designing for use in the home, the office, the organization, as well as the commercial and banking sectors. "We also see some great opportunities for making the Internet better and providing rich new content incorporating multimedia, 3-D, and intelligent assistance," explained Gates. "We are investing across the company for the long term. I think most people are going to be surprised at the depth and breadth of our commitment to integrate the Internet into our products."

The first evidence of this investment will be the release of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0™ (Microsoft's World Wide Web browser for the Windows 95 operating system) in new editions for use with the MS-DOS operating system, Windows 3.1, Windows NT, and Apple® Macintosh operating systems. These new versions will be available for free downloading (aside from your Internet provider's connect time charges) from the Microsoft World Wide Web site later this year. Step-by-step directions on downloading Internet Explorer are provided later in this article.

The new versions will include a number of advanced interactive multimedia features already found in Internet Explorer for Windows 95.

But Microsoft's expanded commitment to the Internet only starts here. Equally important is the news that any leading browser such as NetScape(tm) Navigator or NSCA Mosaic will soon be able to access content on MSN, the Microsoft Network. "MSN is evolving," explains Gates. "The MSN content we're putting together won't require special client software. The extensions we're making to Internet Explorer that will be part of Windows and available on the other platforms is all MSN will need. So, as you move from Internet content to the MSN content, you won't have to load extra things into memory. It'll be a very seamless way of moving back and forth."

MSN will thus pioneer what Gates calls an "Internet online service," which is an evolution of existing online services. "It's a very important concept to us because it means an online service where all the content of the Internet is fundamental to the offering, so it's not necessary for an information provider to go through anyone in order to be out there and make it available," he says. "And yet there's a recognition that, for the person getting onto the Internet, having a great mailbox, having community chat, being able to call up and ask a question about their bill at any time, having things aggregated onto that bill, there will be a business here."

Gates also noted that businesses will adopt the Internet for internal business use - the "Intranet," for communication with employees, suppliers, and customers - and that Intranet applications will likely emerge faster than those for the general consumer market. "Historically, businesses adopt new technologies first and help develop the infrastructure. This lays the foundation for the consumer market."

Microsoft is making Intranet business solutions a focus of its products and strategies. "Our goal is to make the platform, based on the Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems and the Microsoft Office platform, absolutely the best vehicle for business use of the Internet," he said. "Our products and tools are designed to enable applications that encompass both Windows and the Internet."

More than 20 new products and technologies have been developed as part of this commitment, ranging from Internet-based business applications to interactive Internet consumer games. Many of the new products and features are expected to be available in early 1996; the rest are scheduled to be available later in the year.

"Just as the PC revolution was the result of low-cost, powerful microprocessors," Gates said, "the Internet revolution is the result of low-cost, ubiquitous communications. Microsoft's role is to help ensure that the 150 million users of Windows and the 4.5 million developers for Windows have what they need to ride the Internet tidal wave."

Microsoft is not only focused on making Internet integration a part of all the company's major products, but also on making it possible for you to make the Internet part of your future today. Many users, for example, rely on Internet Assistant for Microsoft Word to create what have become known as home pages, containing whatever information they please. While there are many tools available to create home pages, the unique feature of Internet Assistant is that it allows you to take existing Microsoft Word documents and instantly format them for publication on the World Wide Web as home pages (See Home on the page in Microsoft Magazine November/December 1995).

The addresses of these home pages, called uniform resource locators or URLs, are typically written in the following form: http://www.sitename.com The code used to create these pages is known as hypertext markup language or HTML. This language is little more than plain text with tags, indicating boldface <b> like this </b>, italics <i> like this </i> and so on, that can be interpreted by an HTML-savvy program, typically a browser. What you see is a page with styled text and, with additional tags, links to graphics and other files. The tags are generally self evident, or at least easy to memorize because of their mnemonic nature.

Best of all, it is easy to examine the codes in other people's pages to figure out how they accomplished various effects. A major factor in the enormous popularity of the World Wide Web has proven to be the ease with which average users can put together their own Web pages. Creating an HTML document is analogous to desktop publishing, except the final result is a Web page instead of a printed page.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 adds some special tags to the HTML language to support the unique features of Windows 95. For example, a link can be set up to an image file that displays a still picture on other browsers, but is a full-motion video when viewed with Internet Explorer 2.0.

Similarly, you can set up your home page to play an audio or musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) file when Internet Explorer users view it. Users of other browsers won't even notice what they're missing unless they view the "source code" of the file, which can be done by clicking on the word Source in the View menu of Internet Explorer 2.0.

Other enhanced HTML features display a moving banner on the page, set it up like a ticker tape, or as a word or phrase that slides in and stays put. Support for custom fonts, colored text, and tables with colored backgrounds are also included. These extra features are simply ignored by browsers that don't understand the extended HTML tags. Other browsers will still be able to see all the standard parts of those pages, but will not be able to display the special features.

If creating a home page doesn't pull you onto the Internet, then perhaps you'll be intrigued to hear about Microsoft's work to make both online home banking and online shopping a reality in the near future. For example, speaking at a recent banking conference, Bill Gates explained how Microsoft is working with the banking industry as a core technology supplier. In this capacity, Microsoft works with banks and technology companies to enable the creation of new solutions across both traditional and emerging channels.

Gates said that more than 200 banks worldwide are committed to using these solutions as the basis for their next-generation branch environment and he predicted that in online banking, "virtual branches" on the Internet and new email capabilities will become primary vehicles for delivering products and services. "It is becoming increasingly important to provide home-banking services to the 35 percent of Americans who use home PCs, as well as the increasingly large number of home PC users abroad," said Gates. "We've been working closely with retail banks and the technology companies that serve them to understand these industry issues and evolve our strategy to meet their needs." Download video clip from conference (.avi, approx. 5000KB).

Microsoft's long-term vision for helping banks deliver products and services online is based on providing development tools and core technologies for creating a compelling presence on the Internet, offering an easy and safe way for financial institutions to offer online services to their customers, the further development of Microsoft Money as a brandable and extensible personal financial-management software application, and the on-going creation of powerful "end-to-end" solutions from Microsoft Solution Providers.

In the near term, Microsoft Money will enhance its current online capabilities in several areas, including additional processing options to banks, features that will allow you to download your balance information directly from your bank into Microsoft Money, and hot links to banks' World Wide Web sites, enabling consumers to access a bank's "virtual branch" on the Internet. Currently, more than 20 U.S. banks provide or will provide home-banking services integrated with Microsoft Money. Meanwhile, the company is working with Visa International on solving one of the sticking points to development of true shopping and commerce over the Internet: the issue of providing secure ways to shop using the Internet and the World Wide Web.

Microsoft and Visa have published software specifications that allow secure payments over public and private networks. The open specification, known as Secure Transaction Technology (STT), is designed to provide a safe method for handling credit card transactions, such as online shopping, across the Internet. The real difference between this technology and other efforts underway to provide commercial transactions over the Internet is that STT is completely integrated with the current bank card system and thus could more easily serve as a reliable payment system.

"This specification will help enable the electronic commerce marketplace by calming some of the anxieties many consumers and businesses currently have about conducting transactions over electronic networks," said Richard Lonergan, executive vice president of the Point of Transaction division of Visa. "Millions of cardholders and merchants expect security and protection whenever they use or accept a Visa card, and we want to make sure that's the case whether they're using it at the point of sale or on the Internet."

Of course, the Internet is also about having fun, and that's where many of Microsoft's recent efforts in creating a three-dimensional aspect to surfing the World Wide Web are aimed. For example, the company recently announced the development of a new technology to bring interactive 3-D multimedia animation to the Internet. Called active virtual reality modeling language (ActiveVRML), this new technology employs an innovative approach to media integration that adds value to existing formats and is practical at typical modem speeds.

And right now, users of Windows 95 can download Microsoft's new VRML Add-In for Internet Explorer which will give them the ability to view World Wide Web pages that use Microsoft's VRML technology. The VRML Add-In for Internet Explorer is a fully integrated add-on module for Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 that enables users to explore virtual (3-D) worlds using a mouse, a keyboard, or a joystick. VRML Add-In uses RealityLab technology to provide fast and easy access to virtual worlds that were created using VRML 1.0 (Virtual Reality Markup Language). VRML Add-In requires Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 2.0.

Surfing the web using VRML Add-in for Internet Explorer is unlike any other trip to cyberspace you have ever been on. You can move around the site in three dimensions as if you were in a flight simulator or an arcade-style game. As an example, Microsoft offers a three-dimensional walk through its Redmond, Wash. Office Campus. This VRML Add-In for Internet Explorer also handles automatic detection of any "drift" when you are moving around virtual 3-D worlds, allows virtual worlds to be "embedded" within HTML documents, and enables users to "examine" objects using direct manipulation.

Once you've finished touring through VRML (virtual) worlds, you may want to see a glimpse of how online news will be brought to you in the future. The big news here is that NBC, the world's largest provider of news and information, and Microsoft announced last December that they had entered into a 50/50 partnership to create two new businesses, a 24-hour news and information channel, and an interactive online news service distributed on MSN, both of which will be offered worldwide and integrated with the NBC Television Network.

The path-breaking cable service, MSNBC Cable, will debut by mid-1996 with 24-hour news and information programming developed to integrate a chain of news delivery that meets all levels of viewer needs across broadcast, cable, and the Internet. Viewers will look to NBC News for headlines from around the world, tune in to the cable channel for in-depth analysis, and click into MSN for comprehensive information customized to their preferences. Cable operators will also be able to distribute the interactive online news service through high speed cable modems as they become widely available over the next few years.

"Advances in digital technology will give people new control over news and information," said Bill Gates. "They will be able to call up news on demand at their convenience. They will be able to customize their news service. They will be able to watch breaking news on TV and then be able to get more in-depth information on things of interest to them online. We will be working with NBC to create innovative interactive news content and an integrated media."

The three services, NBC News, MSNBC Cable, and MSNBC Online will work in concert, each strengthening the other's position as the leading source for news in that medium. Each service will cross-promote the other, guiding viewers and subscribers through a web of interwoven news and information programs. MSNBC Cable will feature NBC News correspondents, live coverage of world events, news analysis, and a multimedia presence on screen. MSNBC will also include substantial contributions of local news coverage from NBC affiliates for both television and online media, offering viewers the ability to watch local events as they unfold.

In the evenings the new service will offer a dynamic primetime schedule that will be unveiled in the coming months.

The interactive online service, accessible through the Microsoft Network, will leverage content available globally from NBC and CNBC to offer the ability to get a very broad online view of news, and to explore in-depth the news and news analysis gathered by the international NBC news organization.

MSNBC Cable will be managed by NBC News and the interactive news service will be co-managed by NBC and Microsoft. NBC News will retain complete editorial control over the accuracy and integrity of the news content of both services.