Microsoft News Tracker

The Microsoft acquisition of Whale Communications announced in May closed today. Press release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced it has completed the acquisition of Whale Communications Ltd., strengthening Microsoft’s secure access platform (http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver). Whale’s best-of-breed product line includes the Intelligent Application Gateway, which combines Whale’s secure sockets layer (SSL)-based access and application protection technologies with Microsoft® Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server. To mark the deal close, Microsoft is providing a special price promotion for all current and new customers.

Now through Dec. 31, 2006, customers will receive 25 percent off the list price of the Whale Intelligent Application Gateway and 25 percent off on any add-on modules, including Whale’s Connectivity Modules and Application Optimizers. Whale’s Application Optimizers add the benefits of customized policy and content inspection for Microsoft applications and third-party customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, and collaboration platforms.
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Whale Communications is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp.

All Whale Communications products, including the Intelligent Application Gateway, remain immediately available through Whale and its global partner channel and Microsoft sales professionals. More information and product specifications are available at http://www.whalecommunications.com or http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver.

There’s also a Q&A here that, among other things, has future rollout plans:

We will have several phases of product availability over the next 18 months. We will continue to offer the broad selection of Whale’s products, including the IAG, Application Optimizers and network connectors. We are also working with our OEM partners to release an updated Whale and Microsoft ISA Server 2006 appliance, which we plan to bring to market in early 2007. At the same time, we will be integrating Whale technologies into the next release of ISA Server itself (after ISA Server 2006), with the intent to release shortly after Windows Server codename “Longhorn.” This new release will fall under the new Microsoft Forefront brand of security and secure-access solutions.

There was so much product news at last week’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Boston that I gave rather short shrift to some of the more conventional partner promotional activities. Paul F. Roberts and China Martens at InfoWorld:

But with the release of Office 2007 delayed and company founder Bill Gates saying Vista, the next version of Windows, is only “80 percent” guaranteed for its January 2007 release, Microsoft needed to bring more than just good vibes to Beantown. As it turned out, Ballmer brought both carrot and stick: new pricing programs and incentives for partners in one hand and vague threats for those who sell non-Microsoft products in the other.
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For example, SSA (Security Software Advisor) is a new program that provides considerable cash incentives to partners that deploy Microsoft security products such as the Forefront family of client and server security products, ISA Server, and Antigen messaging security products. To promote its security wares, Microsoft is promising to “skill up” existing partners on security and is permitting certifications from organizations such as ISC2 and ISACA to satisfy its Security Partner Competency, said Steve Brown, director of product management for security, access, and solutions at Microsoft.

Microsoft is also dangling cash, offering partners bonuses of as much as 20 percent of the total sales of its security products, and 30 percent in the next seven months, Brown said.
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But Microsoft is also taking a tougher line with its partners and resellers, as Ballmer made clear in his keynote. Partners, he said, have a choice to work with Microsoft or its competitors.

“Some of these choices will probably be less comfortable than some of the other choices that we present you with from time to time,” Ballmer said.

No real details on the “stick,” but there were more carrots including a branch office infrastructure promotion, an updated SQL Server competitive migration program, revised terms for reselling Microsoft systems management software, plus a little boosterism of Windows Vista for the ISVs in the crowd.

While all this is typical partner program activity, Mary Jo Foley at Microsoft Watch picked up on some interesting comments from Steve Ballmer:

Microsoft partners won’t see much, if any, new revenues from Microsoft’s growing Live family of services in the next year. But throughout the coming decade, the Live tide will transform the kinds of products and services that Microsoft and its partners will be selling, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

A brave vision, for sure, but what’s really in it for the partners?

On the Live side of the house, Ballmer said Microsoft would continue to build out new services on the search, content, collaboration, communications and business services fronts.

“That transition will require that we bring you – our partner community – with us,” Ballmer said. “There will be services we host and services you host. Some services sold by you on commission basis. There will be value add around hosted services.”

Among the new Live opportunities Microsoft forsees for partners are AdCenter referrals, Live subscription referrals, hosted managed services and applications, reselling Live subscriptions and hosted solutions and customization of on-premise, hosted and Live solutions, Ballmer told attendees.

Let’s run ‘em down:

- AdCenter referrals: If this is just a reference to a standard referral program, there’s not much there. However, there are businesses today that help Google AdWords customers optimize their buys and there isn’t any reason why there wouldn’t be the same opportunity for AdCenter. That’s more an ad agency or media buyer function than the usual partner fare.

- Live Subscription referrals and reselling Live subscriptions: This sounds pretty nebulous for the consumer space since Windows Live is mostly free and Xbox Live is more retail fodder than a partner business. I guess there’s some spare change in Office Live referrals, but it’s hard to see much of a continuing revenue stream. There’s likely more cash in a referral for the Microsoft hosted Live Dynamics CRM that Ballmer announced, but it’s hard to see how it could compare with the revenue from a VAR installation of regular Dynamics CRM.

- Hosted managed services and applications: Since that same Microsoft hosted Live Dynamics CRM announcement blew partners who were already hosting Dynamics out of the water, this hardly seems enticing.

- Hosted solutions and customization of on-premise, hosted and Live solutions: Now we’re talking real partner business. Partners who build and/or install custom solutions can now use Live services as infrastructure instead of today’s installation on a customer owned server. So far, Live Dynamics CRM is the only one to work with though.

To net it out, if Ballmer wasn’t just blowing smoke, there must be a slew of Microsoft hosted middleware on the way and partners will have to expand their value add beyond mere provisioning of Microsoft based infrastructure. Fair enough, but where does this fit in today’s troika of Windows, Office, and Xbox Live? The question wasn’t answered for Microsoft Live Dynamics CRM which seems to sit out on its own. but maybe there’s a Microsoft Business Solutions Live coming?

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.

Press release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Whale Communications Ltd., a leading provider of secure access products, including secure sockets layer (SSL) virtual private networks (VPN) and Web application firewalls. Whale’s solutions provide remote access, deep content inspection and granular access control, enabling businesses to protect corporate applications and data when accessed remotely by mobile workers, partners and customers. The acquisition will give Microsoft’s customers a broader range of choices for providing secure access from more locations and devices.

Last December Microsoft teamed with Whale for a joint offering of a network security appliance and that collaboration apparently led to the acquisition:

… Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Security, Access and Solutions Division at Microsoft. “We got a lot of positive feedback from customers on that offering,” he said.

Whale’s products have a number of capabilities not presently offered in the ISA Server, including the ability to make VPN (virtual private network) connections based on the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol, as well as software that allows the product to be integrated with business applications.

“Our intent is to bring these together as one secure access offering,” Kummert said, referring to the ISA Server and Whale’s technology.