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I watched the Webcast of yesterday’s TechEd 2006 keynote and offer the modest suggestion that it would be rather better for Microsoft to take it easy on the soporific “People-Ready Business vision” marketing boilerplate and cut to the technical content. To that end, here’s the raw meat:
Security (more details here)
- Antigen e-mail security products announced last week
- Internet Security & Acceleration Server 2006 launched
- Microsoft Forefront announced as new brand for enterprise security products including the next generation of Antigen products. “The Forefront line will include Forefront Client Security (formerly called Microsoft Client Protection), a solution delivering 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.”
Microsoft Application Platform
- A Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the forthcoming SQL Server Everywhere client database was announced – download it here.
- Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio® Team Edition for Database Professionals announced – download it here.
- BizTalk® Server 2006 R2 was revealed last week and there was also mention of a “BizTalk Adapter Pack, a set of application adapters to enable customers to surface line-of-business data directly into familiar interfaces such as Microsoft Office or any client using Web services”.
Exchange (more details here)
- Exchange Server 2007 Beta 2 Announced – available for testing by the end of July
- “Microsoft also disclosed new mobile features and functionality in Exchange Server 2007, including support for search on a device, improved meeting request handling, support for HTML e-mail, message flagging and self-service remote device wipe. The upcoming availability of Exchange Server 2007 Beta 2 is a key step forward to general availability for late 2006 or early 2007.”
Compute Cluster
- Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 released last week
System Center Operations Manager
- Beta of System Center Operations Manager 2007 now publicly available here.
Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta)
- Microsoft Dynamics™ AX version 4.0 launched – details here
There’s likely more to come, but it’s certainly a mixed bag of products.
It’s nice to see that, besides the “people-ready” marketing, there’s some actual product news at Microsoft’s Convergence 2006 this week:
Microsoft Previews Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 at Convergence 2006:
Today at Convergence 2006, the Microsoft Business Solutions Group’s annual customer conference, Microsoft Corp. previewed Microsoft Dynamics™ AX 4.0, an adaptable, global business management solution.
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Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta®) is a multilanguage, multicurrency enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that addresses intricate business scenarios involving complex collaboration within and across companies. Its core strengths in the manufacturing, supply chain management, wholesale and distribution, retail, government, and services industries are extended with Web services integration and portal technology to enable an end-to-end view of a customer’s business.
It will be available later this year.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Expands Customer Choice With New Hosting and Connector Initiatives:
At Convergence 2006, the Microsoft Business Solutions Group’s customer conference, Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM is introducing new programs for hosted CRM and real-time integration. These programs include a new Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional Edition for Service Providers as well as prepackaged connectors designed to give customers more choice and flexibility in the deployment of CRM technology across their businesses. These are being delivered through the Microsoft® global network of hosting and solution delivery partners:
• The Microsoft CRM team is delivering a new version of its full-suite Professional Edition that is enhanced for deployment in hosted environments. The new product will be deployed by hosting partners around the world; these partners will deliver hosted Microsoft CRM directly to end customers or through ISVs, VARs and other partners. This supports Microsoft’s goal of enabling hundreds of regional and vertical on-demand CRM businesses to develop rapidly around the world.
• The Microsoft CRM team is introducing a range of prepackaged connectors and templates for delivering real-time connections with Microsoft Dynamics ERP products as well as third-party CRM and ERP applications such as those from Siebel Systems Inc., SAP AG and Oracle Corp. These connectors will be delivered over the next 12 months, starting immediately with an updated connector to Microsoft Dynamics GP.
These programs are being delivered through Microsoft global network of hosting and solution delivery partners.
Microsoft Releases Microsoft Dynamics GP Extensions:
Today at Convergence 2006, the Microsoft Business Solutions Group’s customer conference, Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics™ GP 9.0 Extensions, a wide range of enhancements to the Microsoft Dynamics GP enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that empower a user’s mobility, strengthen compliance tracking and reporting capabilities, increase business process functionality, and extend the standards-based tools available for developers. This broad set of offerings provides powerful tools for customers and partners and further supports Microsoft’s vision of delivering solutions that are familiar to users, fit with existing systems, fuel business productivity and enable confident decision-making.
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Microsoft Dynamics GP now provides more mobility options so users can access information relevant to their role when they need it. Among these new features is the Field Service Anywhere solution for service technicians, which can be deployed via handheld devices and synchronized with Service Call Management. Based on Microsoft® Windows Mobile®, SQL Server™ Mobile and the .NET Compact Framework, Field Service Anywhere will be deployable as a Windows Mobile version for Pocket PCs with and without phone capabilities.
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Two new pieces of functionality — audit trails and electronic signatures — when used together help ease compliance with FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Audit trails allow users to easily track, trace and report on changes made to data within the Microsoft Dynamics GP solution, including changes made to data within third-party software that resides in Microsoft Dynamics GP.
More details by following the link.
Finally, although it isn’t really product news, Microsoft is sponsoring a community web site for Dynamics users with “enhanced community infrastructure enabling RSS feeds, blogging, video blogging, “mash-ups,” collaborative participation in shared source development projects, and enhanced online discussions.” Fair warning: the marketing speak is fairly dense on this one.
The Microsoft Business Solutions products aren’t just for medium sized businesses any more – Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Adds Thousands of Seats in Enterprise-Scale Deployments:
Microsoft Corp. today announced that since its introduction in December 2005, Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 has been deployed by a broad range of enterprise-scale businesses, many of which comprise thousands of CRM users. The growing adoption worldwide of Microsoft® CRM in corporations and their divisions reflects how Microsoft CRM is meeting the demand for a solution that provides the right level of functionality and extensibility to serve the needs of diverse global enterprises.
Some of the reference customers are H&R Block Inc. (2,000 seats going on 6,000), AGFirst Farm Credit Bank (1,500 seats), Chiesi Farmaceutici SpA (Italy, 500 seats), and Maccabi Healthcare Services (Israel, 1,200 seats).
Microsoft Business Solutions’ customer relationship management solution provides a complete suite of powerful marketing, sales and service capabilities, all with a familiar and consistent user experience based on Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Outlook®.
And that seems to be the plan for the turnaround in MBS: linkage with the ubiquitous Microsoft Office. In February, Microsoft kept that ball rolling with the launch of Microsoft Dynamics Snap:
Microsoft today announced the release of Microsoft Dynamics Snap, a new collection of software programs that snap in to Microsoft Office 2003. These four new programs help enable information workers to easily coordinate and manage data in certain Microsoft Dynamics business management solutions using the familiar interface of Microsoft Office 2003. These applications can enhance the productivity of information workers by allowing them to access and use business processes and data from business management solutions back-end applications like Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0 (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions-Axapta) and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, directly from within certain Microsoft Office applications.
They are all free and made available with the source code.
Autodesk, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today announced an expansion of their existing strategic alliance to enable customers to more easily create, manage, and share critical design data at every stage of the project and product life-cycle processes. The companies announced the completion of the first phase of the expanded alliance, which includes the availability of new Autodesk DWF (Design Web Format) functionality to allow customers to easily integrate design information from Autodesk applications with Microsoft(R) Office applications and Microsoft Business Solutions-Great Plains(R) and Microsoft Business Solutions-Axapta(R), now part of Microsoft Dynamics(TM).
As a part of the expanded alliance, the companies also agreed to further align their respective technologies, including expanded Microsoft support for Autodesk’s DWF functionality and plans for Autodesk to support Microsoft XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language).
At the least, the latter implies a version of Autodesk supporting the graphics bells and whistles provided by Avalon in Vista and perhaps in the backported version coming for Windows XP as well.
