High-Tech Giants Form Alliance Microsoft, Mci, Digital Will Offer Intranet Services

MCI Communications Corp., Digital Equipment Corp. and Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday they would jointly market products for companies that want to apply World Wide Web technology to their internal data systems.

The companies are building on their existing marketing relationships in hopes of playing a big role in an area of system and program design that has become very important.

International Business Machines Corp., AT&T Corp. and Netscape Communications Corp. have formed a similar alliance.

They are part of a growing field of dozens of companies now providing software design tools, network connections and other products for so-called “intranets,” which let companies use Web pages and links for internal information rather than the global public Internet.

In the newest alliance, MCI is handling design and marketing through its recently formed Enterprise Network Solutions. Digital is providing Alpha server systems and Microsoft the software, including Windows NT, BackOffice, Exchange Server and Internet Information Server.

General rollout is tentatively set for late June or early July as the alliance moves to “capture market share and turf before anybody else gets their act together,” said Bert C. Roberts Jr., chief executive of MCI.

“The boundaries between computing and telecommunications are rapidly disappearing,” said Robert B. Palmer of Digital. “New relationships and alliances are being forged, and vast new business opportunities are being created.”

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said putting together such systems is fairly complex, in part because they are critical to a company. “They have to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They have to be absolutely secure. The key information of a company runs on these systems,” he said.

The first round of customers probably will be businesses with at least $50,000 to $100,000 in annual telecommunication costs, but within two years intranet sales “could be driven into the consumer marketplace,” Roberts said in a separate telephone interview.

Microsoft, based in suburban Redmond, is involved in partnerships with both of the other companies.

In January, MCI and Microsoft agreed to market each other’s products, including Microsoft Network. In August, Microsoft and Digital made a deal for Digital to install networks using computers with Windows NT, and last week that arrangement was extended to Microsoft Exchange Server for message handling.