In April of '94, Randy Forgaard (far right) and Charles Ferguson hadn't even heard of the Web. By May, the founders of Vermeer Technologies Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, began developing an HTML editor and Web builder that may soon revolutionize Web publishing for average computer users.
What they created was FrontPage, a powerful menu-driven Web authoring tool and server. After rave reviews started rolling in, Microsoft gobbled up the company in January for a reported US$130 million in stock. The indomitable software giant refuses to let another mercurial niche like Netscape's escape its grasp; with FrontPage, Microsoft fancies a lock on billions of wannabe published netizens weaned on Windows.
As the Justice Department weighs the monopoly factor of this acquisition, Forgaard says Vermeer-Microsoft's plan is to turn FrontPage into "the leading tool for the nontechnical user." Thus goes the story in Redmond: Usurp and conquer.
ELECTRIC WORD
Redmond's Front Page
