Microsoft News Tracker

Today Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 2008) and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS 2008), their bundles of server software for small and medium businesses (SMB):

Large enterprises typically have specialists on staff with the technical knowledge, budgets and time needed to manage IT environments — a luxury small and midsize businesses can rarely afford. Based on feedback directly from customers, SBS and EBS greatly help reduce the setup and ongoing management of IT, while enabling new scenarios to enhance end-user productivity, as well as saving companies money on license costs.
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To ease customer concerns about the initial investment cost of rolling out new infrastructure technology, Microsoft has developed licensing and financing options that allow flexible payment terms from 24 months to 60 months. Both SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 are priced significantly less for qualified customers than it would cost to separately purchase products similar to those included in SBS 2008 and EBS 2008, and Microsoft is offering financing for the hardware, software and partner professional services.

Partners are a big part of sales to SMB, often with VARs selling turnkey industry specific software riding on top, so Microsoft is courting them heavily (as usual) as well as software and hardware developers. There are more details on the contents of the various flavors of these offerings in our earlier post on the subject or at the homepage for Microsoft’s Essential Server Solutions which is Microsoft’s new umbrella term covering SMB server products.

From Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Team blog comes news for Windows Mobile developers about the next version of Internet Explorer Mobile:

Today at Tech•Ed EMEA we announced the availability of emulators and documentation for Internet Explorer Mobile 6, which is the next generation browser for Windows Mobile. Available on new Windows Mobile devices soon, this browser will provide a high-quality browsing experience on your device that more closely resembles a desktop browsing experience. For all you developers, the Internet Explorer Mobile 6 Emulator is available for download today.

Follow the first link for more details on feature changes, but unsurprisingly they consist of evolutionary enhancements.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is getting out its wallet to beat Google and become the default search provider for Verizon cell phone subscribers:

Under the terms now being considered, Microsoft would share revenue with Verizon from ads shown in response to cellphone Web searches, with guaranteed payments to the carrier of approximately $550 million to $650 million over five years, or roughly twice what Google offered, these people said.

Separately, Microsoft is negotiating a deal to put its Windows Mobile software in more Verizon devices. The combined value of the two deals could top $1 billion, these people said, though it isn’t clear if Microsoft is offering to pay Verizon to use Windows Mobile, or would allow Verizon to use the software for free.

Verizon is tilting toward Microsoft because the software giant is offering significantly better financial incentives, but the telecom company is still in discussions with Google and the situation is fluid with both companies, these people said.

Everyone enjoys a good eyeball auction since we can all discuss whether the winner overpaid, but paying Verizon to use Windows Mobile? Maybe Microsoft plans to make it up on volume?

Steve Musil observes that, "While mobile search is still a nascent market, Google controls the lion’s share with 61 percent, followed distantly by Yahoo with 18 percent and Microsoft with 5 percent, according to Nielsen figures." so I suppose that if the deal is done as described, it can be put on the Microsoft balance sheet as another of Steve Ballmer’s "big bets." However, a billion here and a billion there sooner or later adds up to real money even for Microsoft, especially when a payday does not seem imminent.