Dow Chemical Taps Windows Media for Intranet

Microsoft Corp. Thursday announced that Dow Chemical Co. has selected
Microsoft Windows Media as its digital media platform for internal corporate
communications.

Dow will deploy Windows Media as its end-to-end digital communications
solution to more than 30,000 employees via the company intranet and will make
it available to clients and suppliers via its Internet Web site.

“We evaluated several other products in trying to determine the best
streaming media solution,” said Dave Kepler, vice president and CIO, Dow
Chemical Co. “Windows Media integrated seamlessly because we already were
using Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player on all our desktops. Plus,
the small size and high quality of Windows Media-based files enabled us to
manage the bandwidth resources on our network while delivering a great user
experience.”

Dow will deploy a network of several servers around the world, giving its
intranet users access to digital media files of corporate communications, so
that time-sensitive announcements can be quickly created and digitally
broadcast. All employees are able to see or hear company news simultaneously,
or view it later as an archived file.

“This new multimedia technology has greatly improved our corporate
communications. Dow employees can now easily view and listen to global news
announcements using their standard Dow workstations,” Kepler said.

Dow Chief Executive Officer William S. Stavropoulos has used Windows Media to communicate news
personally about key business changes to all of Dow’s employees in order to
break through corporate walls that traditionally have kept executives from
connecting with many other employees. The company provides access to digital
media files from its Internet Web site to better
communicate with customers, communities, stockholders and suppliers.

“Dow continues to look for innovative ways to provide information to our
stakeholders, and streaming media has proven to be an effective tool,” Kepler
said.

“Windows Media was designed to be the most cost-effective and scalable
solution for enterprise customers,” said Dave Fester, director of marketing
for the Digital Media Division at Microsoft. “Dow’s choice to use Windows
Media is another significant example of how digital media significantly
enhances enterprise communications.”

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