Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft created the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) in 2006 as a home for four acquired technologies including Softgrid’s application virtualization, but oddly delivered it only as a perk for System Assurance customers which as a rule are the larger enterprises. Apparently, Microsoft feels that the virtualization portion is the real draw and last week they announced that they are adding the desktop virtualization technologies they acquired with Kidaro and renaming MDOP as Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization:

We’ve invested over $400 million in developing and expanding MDOP thus far, and I’m very excited to share with you that we have officially finalized the acquisition of Kidaro Technologies, whose products enable a seamless combination of applications running from within both a host and guest OS. This technology will help enable end users to run applications from multiple versions of Windows at the same time, with seamless windowing and menus, and without the confusion of logging into and seeing multiple virtual machine desktops. The product teams are working closely with our new colleagues from Kidaro to incorporate the desktop virtualization technologies into MDOP in the first half of 2009, under the new product name Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization. We will continue investing here because we know manageability is fundamental to broad corporate use of desktop virtualization.

We’ve sold over 6.5 million licenses of MDOP to date, making it the fastest-selling volume licensing product in Microsoft history. It’s worth noting that 60 percent of IT Pros who are familiar with MDOP have told us they intend to deploy MDOP within the next 12 months.

While all this is undoubtedly a technological tour de force, one can’t help wonder if the advent of Web apps with better quality user interfaces obviates the need for elaborate virtualization lashups to run desktop applications from multiple managed PCs. Still, there are plenty of legacy Windows apps, particularly in large enterprises, where Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MEDV) may still be the way to go at least for a while.

Microsoft is holding a private Virtualization Deployment Summit today and tomorrow for Microsoft customers and partners. An uncharitable view is that it is all fancy footwork to distract from the late and featured reduced Hyper-V (formerly Viridian), but there was some interesting news including the acquisition of Calista Technologies.

Microsoft has completed the acquisition of Calista Technologies, a leading provider of graphics technologies for next-generation desktop and presentation virtualization solutions. Calista software improves the user experience of 3-D and multimedia delivery for Microsoft multimedia applications, virtualized desktop deployments, and server-hosted virtualized desktops or applications using Windows Server Terminal Services.

Microsoft also finally backed off on the End User Licence Agreement (EULA) prohibition of the virtualization of Home Versions of Windows Vista which had caused adverse comment when it was revealed last year and was clearly an annoyance for developers (not to mention Mac users) although Microsoft had claimed security risks. Those concerns have apparently been allayed.

Finally, Microsoft renewed their vows with satellite Citrix, the long time provider of Microsoft-based thin client solutions and proud new owner of XenSource, and promised a new virtualization marketing push based on Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft’s Viridian virtualization software (aka Windows Server virtualization) that was supposed to be built into Windows Server 2008 is late and feature short, but Microsoft seems to be doing their best to bluff the other players at the VMworld conference today:

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It is a trifle later than was anticipated, but Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for its SoftGrid 4.1 application virtualization package. SoftGrid, which now has its own website, arrived with last year’s Microsoft acquisition of Softricity, but is only available as part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack which is a benefit of the Software Assurance offering for volume license customers.

A variety of Microsoft news items from this week that did not find a post of their own.

EU Asks Microsoft Rivals About Word, Excel Dominance:

European regulators are questioning Microsoft Corp.’s competitors on whether the company is using its dominance in word processing and spreadsheets to thwart rivals, weighing whether to open a new front in the antitrust dispute.

Danger, Will Robinson! Related: EU Extends Microsoft’s Deadline to April 23 to Answer New EU Charges on Licenses.

Yahoo ups the ante for free email with unlimited storage offer. Maybe they make it up on volume? Perhaps more importantly, they also opened up the Yahoo mail APIs to third party developers.

Microsoft warns of zero-day Windows bug. Even worse, it’s a drive-by for all Windows versions including Vista with tainted Web sites or email causing an immediate infection. The problem is due to a glitch in animated cursor handling and third parties are already releasing their own fixes while waiting for Microsoft. A fake IE7 download email is also making the rounds. I got one and was flattered that admin@microsoft.com wrote to personally ask me to download IE7 when I have been avoiding it like the plague.

Microsoft’s announcement of the Xbox 360 Elite was rather an anticlimax after all the leaks. The key point is that the targets for the Elite are the upscale gamers and home entertainment users courted by Sony with the PS3 while Microsoft disdains those “childish” gamers buying the Nintendo Wii. (That’s Nintendo you hear laughing all the way to the bank.) There’s also another opinion that the primary target is really Wall Street, but I digress.  Meanwhile, Sony’s PS3 looks to be getting a new 80GB hard drive and apparently sold well after its European launch.

Zune finally got its 1.3 update and Zune market share slipped again in February.

BizTalk 2006 R2 Beta 2 will be available on Monday.

Microsoft added Netflix founder Reed Hastings to the board of directors and maintained the dividend at $0.10.

Microsoft beta tests Tahiti, yet another collaboration application, this one apparently destined for Office Live.

SoftGrid roadmap: SP1 for 4.1 expected in April/May and along with a tech preview of 4.2. 4.2 RTM and availability “some time around July.”

The PowerShell admin scripting language will ship in Windows Server Longhorn.