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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.
Elizabeth Montalbano at Infoworld:
Microsoft has rolled offerings from several acquisitions into one product that will be available in January to volume-license customers who purchased its Software Assurance maintenance program.
The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance is comprised of software from Microsoft’s purchases of Softricity, AssetMetrix, Winternals Software, and DesktopStandard, said Gabriella Schuster, senior director of product management for Microsoft’s Windows client business group.
The product rolls up virtualization software from Softricity, asset-management software from AssetMetrix, group policy-management software from DesktopSoftware (sic), and diagnostic and recovery tools from Winternals into a product designed to help companies manage desktops in an enterprise, she said.
The Desktop Optimization Pack will be available first with the Softricity offering, now branded Microsoft Softgrid, in January 2007 for a subscription rate of $10 per desktop per year for customers who have purchased Microsoft Software Assurance, Schuster said. These customers will get the software in kits they receive periodically as volume-license customers. The software will also be available for download on the Web, Schuster said.
The rest of the package will roll out through the first half of 2007. Specifically, the pieces are (from the press release):
Producing this bundle was apparently the objective of the acquisitions:
Putting technology from different acquisitions into one product bundle was no accident, Schuster said. She said Microsoft talked to customers about the pain points of managing Windows desktops across the enterprise, and they mentioned asset-management, virtualization, group policy-management and diagnostic and recovery of applications as tools they needed to help solve those problems.
“We found what we thought were best-of-breed [companies] and acquired them specifically to create this pack,” Schuster said. “We wanted to do this comprehensively for enterprise customers.”
It’s nice that the Microsoft Software Assurance customers are being offered this package since their big complaint in the past has been that they don’t get anything from their subscriptions but free product upgrades which have been rather scarce in recent years. However, one can’t help but wonder if Software Assurance is to be the only outlet for the tools acquired from these companies.
In that regard, the Softricity products seem to have a life of their own and the press release calls out the fact that AssetMetrix technology is also available via Microsoft’s Systems Management Server, but there doesn’t seem to be an immediate alternative for the others. In particular, one would think that the offered Winternals toolset would have much broader applicability for Microsoft customers than just those with a Software Assurance subscription and it doesn’t encompass all the former Winternals tools. Hopefully the other products and non-Software Assurance customers won’t be forgotten.
(Via Bink.nu) You may recall that Microsoft has just acquired application virtualization vendor, Softricity, and they haven’t waited long to put their own stamp on Softricity’s Softgrid product line – Thincomputing.net Exclusive – New Softgrid Pricing Announced: Drastically Lower:
Thincomputing.net has received information on the new pricing Microsoft has put on the Softgrid products. This is really earth shattering!Prices of the Softgrid products will be cut by as much as 85%
Follow the link for the list, but it’s tens of dollars per user.
This will make Softgrid affordable for everyone. I think this is a giant step towards application virtualization becoming a commodity.
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The new prices are valid as of the first of August (so as of now) however the actual software will not be available until September the 29th.
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This information still has to be announced officially but that’s just a matter of time.
Discussion of some of the effects on the Microsoft – Citrix relationship by following the link.
