Microsoft delivers buzz-phrase bonanza at Teched

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by Stuart Corner

Tuesday, 13 June 2006

! At its annual event for IT professionals and developers, Teched 2006, Microsoft introduced a new buzz-phrase, the "People Ready Business" which it promised would be realised through its fulfilment of a number of "customer promises" each of which was identified with is own new buzz-phrase. And there were a few significant product announcements as well. According to Microsoft, its executives addressing the 11,000 strong audience at the sell-out event "introduced a comprehensive set of long-term customer promises to IT professionals and developers that align [Microsoft's] efforts to meet key customer needs". Thus Microsoft promised to: "manage complexity, achieve agility; protect information and control access; advance the business with IT solutions; and amplify the impact of people." According to Microsoft, software needs to meet four criteria in order to be considered "people ready." It must be familiar and easy to use, widely used and supported, easy to integrate and connect, and innovative and continually evolving to meet customer needs. Microsoft says its vision of the "People Ready Business" will be realised by the development of "an end-to-end portfolio of IT products, technologies, services and resources designed to empower IT professionals and development teams across the IT life cycle, from the development of powerful and secure solutions through the deployment, management and maintenance stages." There were more promises and platitudes. Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business, said: "We make sure we provide our customers with transparency in our plans, leadership in the industry as a whole and understanding of their needs at a very detailed level...We're establishing that real enterprise level of credibility that has been growing for Microsoft over the past few years. It's only going to continue." Microsoft's big-picture strategy to reduce this complexity is encapsulated in another buzz-phrase, "Dynamic Systems Initiative" (DSI). DSI "provides a model-driven approach to put IT pros in control of their environment," Microsoft says. "Through self-managing dynamic systems, IT pros can focus on setting policy while spending less time worrying about lower-level management functions. This reduces both the complexity and TCO of developing, deploying and managing applications so an IT staff can focus on delivering new business value." Microsoft says it is implementing DSI into a variety of software technologies. For example, models are built into the development tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and upcoming versions of management tools will feature a new approach identified by yet another buzz-phrase, the System Definition Model (SDM) which "provides a standard way to represent operational information or knowledge for each component of an IT system". Amidst all the new buzz words there were some specific announcements. • Microsoft is putting federated security models into Active Directory and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) which will allow capabilities such as single sign-on, thereby granting business partners access to applications without forcing them to log on multiple times (These federated capabilities are already available in Windows Server 2003 R2). Microsoft says that Active Directory is "poised to become an even more crucial element of identity management" as it sets its sights on a world where "the boundaries of an enterprise are not defined by a firewall, but by security policies". • Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will include new mobile features and functionality that will "enhance a workforce's ability to connect anytime and anywhere in order to gain needed insights in making faster decisions in driving business success". • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 will support all intranet, extranet and Web applications across the enterprise with a single, integrated platform. According to Microsoft, "rather than forcing IT professionals to rely on separate, fragmented systems, SharePoint Server 2007 minimises the number of systems that IT needs to create, support and maintain". • Microsoft launched Internet Security & Acceleration Server 2006, an integrated edge security gateway that helps protect IT environments from Internet-based threats while providing users with fast and security-enhanced remote access. • Microsoft Forefront, a new brand for the next wave of security and secure access products. The Forefront brand values "reflect Microsoft's ongoing commitment to providing a comprehensive set of security products across client, server and edge that integrate with existing infrastructure and simplify the task of managing and controlling IT security and access". The Forefront line will include Forefront Client Security (formerly called Microsoft Client Protection). It provides unified malware protection for business desktops, laptops and server operating  systems. An early beta version has been made available to select customers, and a public beta is planned for the fourth quarter of 2006. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to post your comment! Tags See All Tags Microsoft  Get stories like this delivered daily - FREE - subscribe now

 

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