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Microsoft today staged a rolling launch of Windows Vista, Office 2007, Exchange 2007 , and associated products starting in Sydney, Australia and wrapping around the world through Asia and Europe to Steve Ballmer in New York who is still speaking as I write. The launch event so far has been as devoid of excitement as expected, but the important thing is that Microsoft at long last got Vista out the door.
Update: For the sake of completeness, according to the press release linked above, the full set of products launched today was:
Products Released
An * below indicates the product is available now.Client upgrades
• Windows Vista Business *
• Office Professional 2007 *
• Office Project Professional 2007 *
• Office Visio Professional 2007 *
• Office InfoPath 2007 *
• Office OneNote 2007 *
• Office Communicator 2007Client enterprise editions
• Windows Vista Enterprise *
• Office Enterprise 2007 *Server upgrades
• Exchange Server 2007 *
• Office SharePoint Server 2007*
• Office Project Server 2007 *
• Forefront Security for Exchange Server *
• Forefront Security for SharePoint *
• System Center Configuration Manager 2007Server Enterprise editions
• Windows Rights Management Services *
• System Center Operations Manager Enterprise 2007
• Unified Messaging Services for Exchange *
• Excel and Forms Services for SharePoint *New products
• Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance
• Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 *
• Office Forms Server 2007 *
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007*
• Office Communications Server 2007
• “Voice Call Management” for Office Communication Server 2007
• Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
• Forefront Client Security
• Office Sharepoint Server for Search 2007 *
• SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Office 2007
• System Center “Desktop”
• Office Groove Server 2007*
• Office Groove 2007 *
• Exchange Hosted Services*
I’ve already mentioned the Forefront announcements, but Microsoft had quite a bit more to reveal today at their Tech Ed IT Forum 2006 in Barcelona:
Last and perhaps least, Microsoft led a mixed bag of software vendors in forming the Interop Vendor Alliance:
Today at Microsoft Tech Ed: IT Forum 2006, Microsoft Corp. announced the formation of the Interop Vendor Alliance, a global, cross-industry group of software and hardware vendors that will work together to identify opportunities for enhancing interoperability with Microsoft systems on behalf of their customers.
Notable among the founding members are BEA, Novell, Sun and AMD, but not Intel, although why AMD signed up is a bit of mystery. Of course, the whole alliance is a bit of a mystery as the goals described are unusually fuzzy. However, Scott M. Fulton III may have won the prize with the observation:
In Europe, at the heart of the global controversy over whether Microsoft and interoperability are incompatible, the Redmond company announced it is funding a global consortium of software and hardware manufacturers in the name of interoperability itself.
Maybe it’s an extra credit assignment from Neelie Kroes?
Update Nov. 15: PowerShell won’t be compatible with Vista until January 31, 2007.
Update Nov 16: Peter Galli at eWeek elaborates on Longhorn Server:
The Redmond, Wash., software maker plans to release another Longhorn CTP (Community Technology Preview) later this year, followed by another CTP in early 2007 and then Longhorn Beta 3 by the middle of the year.
“The current plan is to ship Longhorn and Vista SP1 simultaneously, as it is one source code base. So, if you follow that model, you have to ship them both at roughly the same time,” Bob Muglia, Microsoft’s senior vice president for server and tools, told eWeek at the company’s TechEd IT Forum here.
The server code will be feature-complete in early 2007, said Muglia, who put to rest speculation that Longhorn would be officially renamed Vista Server, as it is referred to on some Microsoft staff blogs.
Update Nov 18: The Windows Server 2003 SP2 RC is now available for public review. Download and info is here.
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.
Aside from the AssetMetrix acquisition, there was a variety of other news from the Microsoft Management Summit 2006. At one point Microsoft had planned to build a product called System Center that combined its management software icons, System Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) but has given that up in the face of customer resistance and “now plans to use System Center as a brand, covering a half dozen different products.”
Here’s the rundown:
The new System Center offerings released and announced over the past year are:• System Center Data Protection Manager 2006
• System Center Capacity Planner 2006
• System Center Reporting Manager 2006
…
MOM V3 will become Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, while SMS V4 will become Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007.
and there’s a new service desk product planned:
We also announced our investment in a new product for the service-desk market, to be delivered toward the end of 2007. This is a very significant announcement as with this product, codenamed Service Desk, we are providing two key components that will form the foundation for the entire System Center family: 1) A workflow engine that will provide the basis for how we automate IT processes, and 2) the implementation of the SDM-based Configuration Management Database (CMDB), which will be the foundation of our asset and change management capability.
Underlying all this is a new administrative scripting language called Windows PowerShell:
We announced the delivery schedule for Windows PowerShell, formerly known as MONAD. Windows PowerShell is a powerful administrative command shell and scripting environment. It will be available as a no-charge Web download in the second half of this year. Also, we announced that the next version of Microsoft Exchange, which will be the first Microsoft application to deliver new automation capability based on PowerShell, will officially be named Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. In addition, System Center Operations Manager 2007 is building a solution based on PowerShell. The Exchange Management Shell in Exchange Server 2007 is based on PowerShell and will save IT administrators valuable hours by allowing routine and repetitive tasks to be automated through a scriptable command line shell.In addition, Exchange Server 2007, which is due end of 2006 or early 2007, will include the Exchange Management Console – a graphical console also built entirely on top of MMC 3.0 and PowerShell that will increase administrative productivity through simplified navigation and new filtering capabilities for managing the messaging environment.
The above is apparently the first announcement of the formal name for the next version of Exchange, heretofore called Exchange 12. You can download RC1 of PowerShell via the links at this post on the Monad Technology Blog.
