Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft China and Satyam Computer Services of Hyderabad, India have agreed

… to work together in Greater China to tap what they hope will be growing demand for complex IT systems from large businesses in the region, they announced Thursday.

The two will establish the Satyam Microsoft Adaptive Solution Center, featuring a broad range of IT offerings from Satyam built around Microsoft products.

The full press release is here but Greater China means China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and the Solution Center will be somewhere in the area with Satyam staffing it.

Also in the article:

Microsoft Corp. has already invested in a joint venture in China, with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest software and services outsourcer. After approval by the Sino-India Cooperative Office (SICO) of the Chinese government, TCS said in June it would set up an IT outsourcing service joint venture with Microsoft, although the software and services will not be limited to Microsoft products.

Mary Jo Foley notes a Microsoft roadmap slide that indicates that Exchange 12, which had been expected in 2006, is now billed as late 2006 or early 2007. Exchange 12 Beta 1 is scheduled for 4Q2005 and Beta 2 in mid 2006.

(Via WinInsider) Paula Rooney at CRN:

Microsoft is taking bigger steps into the licensing consulting space that’s served by many large-account resellers.

The Redmond, Wash., company on Monday unveiled an early version of Microsoft Product Licensing Advisor, a new online service designed to help IT users make product selections, find the most cost-effective license, and configure and price solutions.

You can launch the advisor here.

In phase one of the service, slated to go live this month in the United States only, customers will have access to a U.S. call center, licensing program comparison and guidance, a License Trainer wizard and a product selection service, including a downloadable configuration and list price estimate, Microsoft said. Phase two of the service, to be rolled out in January, will add to those core services by providing up-to-date information about new product-use rights and new Software Assurance benefits due to become effective in March.

The third phase of the initiative will be the global launch of the service, targeted for spring 2006. Microsoft will be able to quote an entire business solution and provide optimal product-licensing scenarios for customers, based on content provided by its product and business groups. Users also can employ a chat function to interact with worldwide call centers via the global service, which will be rolled out in 20 languages. Microsoft piloted the licensing tool in Europe last year.

Which is all swell but calls into doubt the role of Microsoft partners who used assist customers with licensing:

Though Microsoft is seeking a more direct relationship with customers, the licensing tool doesn’t spell doomsday for the company’s software asset management (SAM) partners, said Brent Callinicos, corporate vice president of licensing at Microsoft.

The goal is to resolve 80 percent of the most common licensing questions for IT professionals, and Microsoft partners will handle the last mile of customer needs–the 20 percent of value-added and customization services that pay higher fees, according to Callinicos. Microsoft won’t work directly with procurement managers, handle product fulfillment or charge a service fee, he said.

More details by following the link.

I’ve already mentioned the Great Plains and Enterprise Desktop Search announcements but there’s more:

Microsoft Corp. today kicked off its premier European conference for IT professionals, IT Forum 2005, in Barcelona, Spain, by announcing a range of new software technologies and applications.
…
Muglia made several product announcements during his keynote address.

• As part of its commitment to 64-bit computing, Microsoft has been delivering products that are optimized for 64-bit, including the newly released SQL Server™ 2005, Visual Studio® 2005 and Virtual Server 2005 R2. To help customers take full advantage of the power of 64-bit computing, products including Microsoft® Exchange Server “12,” Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Windows Server™ “Longhorn” Small Business Server, and Microsoft’s infrastructure solution for midsize businesses, code-named “Centro,” will be exclusively 64-bit and optimized for x64 hardware. In a future update release to Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Server “Longhorn” operating system, code-named Windows Server “Longhorn” R2, customers will see the complete transition to 64-bit-only hardware, while still benefiting from 32-bit and 64-bit application compatibility. For the highest-scale application and database workloads, Windows Server on 64-bit Itanium-based systems will continue to be the premier choice for customers for years to come.

Now that is a shock, and not only will Exchange 12 and Longhorn Server R2 be 64-bit only, but that forces everything built on top to go 64-bit too like the SMB offerings. Harold Wong has some Q&A on Exchange 12.

Also announced:

- “Microsoft has released to manufacturing (RTM) Virtual Server 2005 R2, which will be available in volume licensing and retail the first week of December.” (This was expected, but not the prices: “Microsoft will be offering Virtual Server R2 Standard Edition for $99 (U.S.) estimated retail price and Virtual Server R2 Enterprise Edition for $199 (U.S.) estimated retail price. This new pricing represents Microsoft’s commitment to making server virtualization more accessible to customers at the lowest price point.”)

- “Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Beta 2 is now publicly available.” (We’ll likely hear more about this today from Bill Gates. More here and here.)

- “The company announced the December RTM of System Center Capacity Planner 2006, which brings an unprecedented level of functionality and flexibility to the process of performance analysis and planning of Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 system deployments. Microsoft also detailed plans for a midmarket offering called System Center Essentials. The new product will bring the commitment of the Dynamic Systems Initiative to midsize companies, allowing them to easily and cost-effectively secure, update, monitor and track their IT environment and better support end users.”

System Center used to be a planned product, but now it’s the new brand for Microsoft management products.

Press release:

Today at the annual IT Forum, Microsoft Corp. launched Windows® Desktop Search enabled for enterprise deployment, which allows corporate information workers to quickly find and retrieve precisely what they’re looking for on their personal computers, in e-mail and on network file shares from a single starting point. Launching Windows Desktop Search for enterprise deployment is another step toward achieving Microsoft’s vision for enabling a complete enterprise search experience with search across the PC and e-mail through Windows Desktop Search, across the enterprise intranet environment with Microsoft® SharePoint® Portal Server 2003, and across the Web with MSN® Search.

The new offering of Windows Desktop Search is easy for IT managers to deploy, customize and manage across all Microsoft Windows XP-based or Windows 2000-based PCs in a corporate environment. This supports a powerful and intuitive search experience that can be integrated with familiar environments such as Microsoft Office, SharePoint Portal Server and other third-party enterprise products.

Windows Desktop Search had been available to end users via the MSN Toolbar, but this offering is customized for enterprise users:

The new enterprise version of Windows Desktop Search takes the consumer version of the product offering — which provides fast search capabilities to locate information across e-mail, the desktop or shared network drives — and provides a simple way to deploy and manage this product across the enterprise environment.
…
Enterprise customers have the option to deploy the MSN Search Toolbar, which provides a new beta feature that gives people the ability to see integrated Windows Desktop Search results within Microsoft Office Outlook®. IT managers can customize Windows Desktop Search and the MSN Search Toolbar to allow users to easily switch the scope of their search experience from their desktop to the Web or to a corporate intranet, all from one ubiquitous search box.
…
IT professionals can easily deploy, customize and manage these search capabilities via Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 or third-party deployment tools. IT professionals can also extend Windows Desktop Search to index additional information sources and file types using IFilters and protocol handlers that are extensively documented on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN®) Web site, http://msdn.microsoft.com. Enterprises can tap into additional product assistance through Microsoft Product Support Services.

Currently supported in 15 languages, with others available soon, Windows Desktop Search for the enterprise can be downloaded for free with a Windows License at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/enterprise.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Google Desktop 2.0 (with desktop search) left beta on November 3 and has both end user and enterprise flavors.

Update (11/16): Chris Kraeuter and Rachel Rosmarin at Forbes survey the enterprise search market.