Microsoft News Tracker

In April, Microsoft gave Windows XP Home a reprieve on low-cost mobile computers until at least June 30, 2010 and today they extended it to low cost desktops:

Today at Computex, Microsoft Corp. announced that following the success of Windows on netbooks, the Windows offering is being extended to include nettop devices. Netbooks are commonly referred to as ultralow-cost PCs (ULCPCs) and were originally intended for students and other first-time PC customers in emerging markets. Nettop refers to desktops that are ultralow-cost.

I guess some head shaping for the PR staff went on after the April announcement which prominently mentioned Windows XP Home. Today’s announcement confusingly mentions only generic Windows except for one partner quote. So what’s the reason for the enlarged reprieve?

Customers are asking for Windows on these devices because the experience is familiar to existing PC users and easy to learn for customers who are new to computing. Customers want to be able to take advantage of the wide range of applications, devices and online experiences supported by Windows today. Microsoft partners also appreciate Windows-based solutions for these computers because they already know how to build and support high-quality systems that are powered by Windows.

And they can’t do any of those things with Vista apparently, presumably because of its considerable heft, and don’t want Linux sneaking in. One would also guess that the definition of ultralow-cost PC is subject to some negotiation.

So, here’s what the end of life plan for Windows XP currently looks like based on today’s announcement and the Microsoft Volume Licensing Brief, the Royalty OEM Reference Sheet, and the License Availability Roadmap:

- No XP retail availability after June 30, 2008

- No XP OEM (large PC manufacturer) availability after June 30, 2008 except:

• OEMs can downgrade Vista Business or Vista Ultimate licenses to Windows XP Professional or Tablet PC versions for customers indefinitely.
• OEMs building "ultralow-cost" PCs can deliver XP Home licenses until June 30, 2010.

- No XP volume purchase licenses after June 30, 2008, but volume purchasers and System Assurance subscribers can always downgrade to XP as long they have the appropriate media.

- No System Builder (smaller PC assemblers) XP availability after January 31, 2009.

Bill Gates made a valedictory appearance at this year’s TechEd and along with a Steve Ballmer robot had some some development related announcements:

• Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 will be available in August.
• Silverlight 2 beta 2 will be available this week with a commercial Go Live license along with Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview and Microsoft Silverlight Tools beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 as tooling.
• "IBM and Microsoft have agreed to work together to integrate IBM DB2 database access with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition."
• A new community technology preview (CTP) of the Microsoft Sync Framework, which will be released in the third quarter of 2008 with full support for the FeedSync open protocol format on devices. A CTP for Windows Mobile support will also be available in the third quarter 2008.
• The first CTP of the Microsoft project code-named “Velocity” which provides a a distributed, in-memory application cache. "Large clusters of machines can be seamlessly integrated into a single cache, providing high availability to data."
• Reiteration of a commitment for the “Oslo” project for model-driven development which will "include visual modeling and composition tools, a foundational repository built on SQL Server 2008 for managing application metadata, and a new, declarative modeling language to enable interoperability of models between tools and domain-specific modeling notations."
• A new version of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 v1.2.

Not on the formal program was a certain amount of uncertainty over the arrival of SQL Server 2008:

He said Microsoft’s SharePoint Server would become the first Microsoft product to use enterprise search from its Fast Search and Transfer acquisition. The delayed SQL Server will be next. "Think of it as SQL Server, but it’s really Fast," he said.

For all the talk of data services, there was still no date on the next edition of SQL Server. Demonstrating SQL Server 2008, Dave Campbell, from Microsoft’s data storage platform division said SQL Server 2008 would be available in the "next month or two."

SQL Server 2008 is due in 3Q so it is not really past its latest due date. Fast Search & Transfer was acquired by Microsoft in January.

Microsoft yesterday announced the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 with a large laundry list of enhancements.

Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta) is one of Microsoft’s poorly delineated family of mid-market enterprise resource planning products that were obtained by acquisition and then left to snooze profitlessly in Microsoft Business Solutions. Microsoft had high hopes for mashing together all the odds and ends in MBS under the Dynamics brand and sharing a combined underlying framework called "Project Green," but the bloom was soon off the latter rose and only the brand remains. Still, Dynamics AX might be viewed as a triumph of sorts:

AX 9000 also represents the start of Microsoft’s new strategy of CRM software "harmonization," adopted after the failure of Microsoft’s Project Green, an initiative to move components from its various CRM products to a single Web services-based environment.

Instead, Microsoft now plans to "harmonize" its CRM offerings through increased adoption of SQL Server and the .NET Framework across AX and its other CRM product line-ups: Dynamics GP, NAV, and SL.

So the developers continue to beaver on supporting their existing customers and perhaps bagging a new one here and there, but the financial results, if they are in fact positive, are buried by Office with which Dynamics shares the Microsoft’s Business Division.