Microsoft ActiveX Conferencing, in a Nutshell

April 1996
Updated: May 24, 1996

Real-time Microsoft® ActiveX™ Conferencing will be part of the intrinsic functionality of Windows® 95 by the end of the year. The ActiveX Conferencing Software Development Kit (SDK) was announced and released in alpha form at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in March 1996, and is now available in beta form on this site. The first release of ActiveX Conferencing will provide real-time audio and data collaboration of applications that run on the desktop. Video conferencing will follow in future releases.

ActiveX Conferencing is based on ITU standards: Today, it uses T.120 for data conferencing. T.120 is a part of the H.323 standard, and in future implementations, ActiveX Conferencing will be fully compliant with H.323 for audio and video as well. Microsoft will target the Windows 95 and Windows NT® platforms first. Microsoft will then work to ensure that conferencing will be supported on the Macintosh®, OS/2®, and UNIX®. Because ActiveX conferencing is based on standards, it can also interoperate with products that adhere to the standards.

Data conferencing works over several different transports, including IP, PSTN, and IPX. In the future, vendors will be able to install their own transports for data conferencing. Conference members can be connected over different types of connections at the same time (for example, one over an intranet, one over the Internet, and one dialed in over a modem).

Imagine these scenarios:

ActiveX Conferencing will be built into a Windows release in the second half of 1996. With conferencing, users who are running Windows will be able to share any application on the desktop through the conferencing interface. In addition, the ActiveX Conferencing SDK includes conferencing application programming interface (API) functions that allow application developers to manage conferencing, share files, and share applications without leaving the application itself. Conferencing will include some limited tools (for example, file transfer, whiteboard, and a chat tool). Currently, data conferencing can be established with multiple sites, while audio can only be established point to point. However, multi-point audio and video conferencing will be available in future releases.

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© 1996 Microsoft Corporation