What is a TeleBriefing? Briefings are telephone-based conferences that consist of a 30-minute presentation by a Directions on Microsoft expert followed by a question-and-answer period. Briefing topics complement Directions on Microsoft research.

How often are briefings held? Briefings are held once a month. Past TeleBriefings are listed below. For a list of upcoming TeleBriefings, see the Future TeleBriefing Schedule.

How does one register for a briefing? Please send an e-mail to TeleBriefings@DirectionsOnMicrosoft.com or call 425.739.4669 x13. You will be provided instructions for dialing into our telephone conference system.

Notes on playing Audio from past Briefings: You must be a subscriber to access the audio. Depending on how your browser is configured, it may be easier to:

• hover over one of the "Audio" links below, right click, select "Save Target As" to save the audio on your computer, and then play it locally, or
• click on one the Audio links below to play it directly. Note that you may be asked for your logon credentials twice, depending on your browser configuration.

Enterprise Agreements represent a major commitment for midmarket and enterprise volume licensing customers, and they require careful planning in order to maximize their benefits.

In this TeleBriefing, licensing analyst Paul DeGroot reviews the major features of Microsoft's Enterprise Agreements, and identifies what you need to understand before initiating or renewing an Enterprise Agreement.

Windows Server 2008 delivers tighter security and other improvements that can prevent a server application from running on the new OS. Some Microsoft server applications require a specific version or service pack, and some highly anticipated OS features such as Network Access Protection and Hyper-V virtualization require additional application or client updates. Consequently, organizations might want to stage deployment of Windows Server 2008 by concentrating first on infrastructure services and other server roles that are less likely to be affected by application compatibility.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS director of research Rob Helm summarizes the server and client software in your organization that might require updating to support Windows Server 2008 and leverage its most prominent new features.

At the recent Microsoft Management Summit, Microsoft reiterated its focus on enhancing and coordinating its enterprise systems management software offerings. It also announced plans to provide cross-platform support in its products.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Don Retallack discusses Microsoft's evolving strategy for systems management and provides a roadmap for current and future offerings, including the System Center family of products.

A year after introducing its "Software Plus Services" strategy, Microsoft is clearly focused on new services that add to—rather than cannibalize—its existing software offerings. Microsoft has also made clear its plan to use the existing channel to sell these new services.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Matt Rosoff discusses how software plus services has evolved in the last year, what it means for customers and partners, and likely next steps.

Microsoft used Convergence 2008, the annual conference for customers and partners of the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) unit, to set expectations for its most important products, including Microsoft CRM and Dynamics AX. In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Chris Alliegro summarizes the latest shifts in the MBS product roadmap and their implications.

In this TeleBriefing, Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry reviews the features delivered in Windows Server 2008 that have the greatest impact on business users, including changes to Active Directory, IIS 7.0 and Terminal Services that improve security, manageability, remote access and rights management.

As customers evaluate Microsoft's next major virtualization technology, a hypervisor that works with Windows Server 2008, they will need to keep licensing issues in mind.

In this TeleBriefing, licensing analyst Paul DeGroot reviews the major features of Microsoft's virtualization licensing for both servers and clients, assesses the impact of recent changes to licensing rules, and discusses areas where further change is likely.

Visual Studio (VS) 2008, the latest release of Microsoft's popular integrated development environment is about to ship. VS 2008, along with the .NET Framework 3.5, includes significant improvements in the way developers query databases, and better support for developing applications with Office 2007. It provides only modest improvements, however, in areas such modeling and development team collaboration.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS analyst Greg DeMichillie summarizes the most important capabilities delivered with VS 2008 and how they can help corporate IT departments streamline development of business applications. He also provides guidance on the VS and .NET Framework roadmaps.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 is suite of business intelligence (BI) applications that promise to help large organizations streamline complex financial reporting tasks and track and measure corporate performance. Released in September 2007, PerformancePoint continues Microsoft's push into the rapidly expanding but intensely competitive BI tools market.

In this TeleBriefing, senior analyst Chris Alliegro provides an overview of the three main BI applications delivered with PerformancePoint: PerformancePoint Planning; PerformancePoint Monitoring; and ProClarity. He will discuss opportunities and challenges early adopters of these tools should expect.

Major releases to Windows, the SQL Server database management system, and the Visual Studio development tool suite are coming in late 2007 and early 2008. Most organizations will want to evaluate these releases, which set a new baseline for Microsoft infrastructure and deliver important improvements for application development. However, some organizations will wait to deploy these releases until they have seen Microsoft's new virtualization technology.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS director of research Rob Helm discusses upcoming shifts in Microsoft's application platform roadmap IT planners should consider as they map their application development strategy.

Customers wishing to implement instant messaging (IM), voice and video calls, and on-premise Web conferencing using Microsoft's latest technology face a complex set of licensing choices and requirements.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS analyst Rob Horwitz explains the various server licenses and Client Access Licenses (CALs) required to implement a real-time communications system built on Office Communications Server 2007 and Communicator 2007.

Microsoft is talking up its new "Software Plus Services" strategy to customers, partners, and financial analysts, with Steve Ballmer calling it the company's top long-term priority.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Matt Rosoff explains what Microsoft means by software plus services, how it differs from "software as a service," and identifies how existing Microsoft products and programs are likely to evolve with the new strategy.

Microsoft offers a broad assortment of developer technologies, some with bright prospects for future enhancement and support, and others toward the end of their usable life. It is essential that both corporate and commercial developers target the correct Microsoft tools and APIs so as to avoid mistakes that could lead to premature obsolescence or costly rewrites.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Greg DeMichillie explains where Microsoft's developer technologies are heading. He'll also discuss what recent and upcoming changes in Microsoft's development platform mean for Microsoft customers and partners.

Microsoft's licensing policies are notoriously complex. A new class of Client Access Licenses (CALs) for Microsoft server applications—including Exchange 2007 and SharePoint 2007—adds more complexity and cost to Microsoft licensing.

In this TeleBriefing, lead analyst Paul DeGroot will explain the new Enterprise CALs. He'll also explain the pros and cons of Microsoft's new Enterprise CAL Suite, which may simplify the Enterprise CAL purchase decision for organizations willing to increase their commitment to Microsoft.

SharePoint Server 2007 aims to expand the appeal of Microsoft's platform for intranet portals and team collaboration with support for a variety new roles, including records management, centralized spreadsheet management, and business intelligence.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Chris Alliegro discusses new product features and business scenarios supported by SharePoint Server 2007, and outlines factors to consider when evaluating to the latest version of SharePoint.

The new Enterprise Software Roadmap shipped to DIRECTION'S clients March 1st. The roadmap summarizes past, current, and future versions of Microsoft's products and is an all-in-one-place reference for corporate IT customers who plan migrations, schedule training, budget for purchases, and assess license agreements.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Rob Helm will provide an overview of the most significant changes in Microsoft's software and services offerings including Windows, Office and major server releases for 2007. He will also provide insight into how these changes might affect Microsoft customers and partners.

Note: We made an error during the question and answer period regarding enterprise CALs. With the exception of the Forefront and Hosted Services Filtering options for Exchange, purchase of Enterprise CALs is not an all-or-none proposition; customers may purchase Enterprise CALs for only a select group of users. With Exchange Server 2007, for example, an organization with 10,000 Exchange users could buy 500 enterprise CALs just for the operators in its call center who use Exchange's voicemail feature (which requires enterprise CALs). However, this strategy can create serious problems in case of an audit: For example, it would be hard for an organization to prove that only users with enterprise CALs use Exchange voicemail, because voicemail is enabled for all users. Consequently, organizations that buy enterprise CALs for any users might end up having to buy them for all users. We regret the error. For more information on managing enterprise CALs, see the following article: "Enterprise CAL Suite Reduces Complexity, at a Price".

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS analysts Pete Pawlak outlines the major areas of improvement in Exchange Server 2007 that may influence organizations to upgrade, as well as summarizes the licensing and labor costs associated with migration.

Note: This Telebriefing was original scheduled for December 19, 2006 but had to be rescheduled due to ongoing disruptions caused by severe windstorms that hit the Puget Sound area on Friday December 15th.

After five years of delays and feature cuts, Windows Vista is finally shipping to Microsoft's corporate customers. But many businesses still question whether Vista delivers anything that merits their immediate attention.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS analyst Michael Cherry will summarize and answer questions about the features in Vista that will have the greatest impact on business users, including security, manageability, mobile computers, and networking. It also explains how these improvements may justify early adoption of Vista to corporate IT decision makers.

The .NET Framework 3.0 is the latest version of Microsoft's application development platform shipping as part of Windows Vista and available for Windows XP. The new Framework includes libraries that offer sophisticated graphics, better support for Web services, workflow programming to capture business processes, and a new user interface for authentication, among other capabilities.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS analyst Greg DeMichillie will summarize the most important new capabilities delivered with Microsoft's updated application development platform and how they could help corporate IT departments streamline development of business applications. He'll also provide guidance on the platform's limitations that IT managers should consider before migrating to .NET 3.0.

Microsoft has announced ambitious plans to unify today's chaos of incompatible communications applications, networks and devices onto a common network and server infrastructure that supports multiple types of devices.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS analyst Rob Horwitz will provide a roadmap for current and future versions of Microsoft communication products and technologies, including Exchange 2007, Office Communications Server (formerly known as Live Communications Server) and Live Meeting 2007. He will also discuss the role partners must play in Microsoft's strategy for claiming a share of the $45 billion unified communications market.

Microsoft continues to push into the systems management space by integrating management deeper into Windows Server and shipping new and updated management tools and products.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS analyst Pete Pawlak will discuss Microsoft's evolving strategy for systems management. He will also provide a roadmap for current and future versions of Microsoft system management products and technologies, including System Center Configuration Manager (formerly known as Systems Management Server) and Operations Manager.

The new Dynamics Software Roadmap will ship to DIRECTIONS clients as of Sept. 1st. The roadmap gives readers an overview of the MBS product portfolio and the division's likely future directions.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Chris Alliegro will provide an overview of the most significant changes in the Dynamics product line and describe how Microsoft is converging on a single ERP product.

Microsoft is more dependent on partners than any other major software company. Companies participating in Microsoft's partner programs can tap Microsoft's vast array of resources and market power. Navigating Microsoft's sprawling partner program, however, can be confusing.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Paul DeGroot describes major elements of Microsoft's partner strategy and the general landscape of Microsoft partnerships. He'll also outline the characteristics that are important to Microsoft in evaluating its partners and some of the teams involved in managing partners and partner programs.

Microsoft's sudden and massive effort to reinvigorate the stagnant MSN business with Windows Live has caused considerable confusion. Some even speculate that Windows Live is a fundamental change to Microsoft's overall business strategy. It's not.

In this TeleBriefing, DIRECTIONS senior analyst Matt Rosoff explains Windows Live and the specific role it plays in Microsoft's overall strategy. He will also provide insight into what Windows Live means (and doesn't mean) for Microsoft customers and partners.

Microsoft offers a broad assortment of developer technologies, some with bright prospects for future enhancement and support, and others toward the end of their usable life. It is essential that both corporate and commercial developers target the correct Microsoft tools and APIs so as to avoid mistakes that could lead to premature obsolescence or costly rewrites.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Greg DeMichillie explains how Microsoft's programming languages and Visual Studio tools will evolve through the release of Windows Vista and beyond. He will also provide insight into how these changes might affect Microsoft customers and partners.

The first feature-complete public release of Windows Vista shipped with the February 2006 Community Technology Preview (CTP). Microsoft calls this fourth CTP the "Enterprise" CTP to signal large organizations that they should begin their evaluations. But this CTP also represents an important release for hardware and software developers who need to ensure that their products will work with Vista.

In this TeleBriefing, Directions senior analyst Michael Cherry will provide an overview of the most significant new features available in Vista and explain which features will ship with which of the five Vista editions. Michael will also provide suggestions and answer questions related to the Vista evaluation process.

In this TeleBriefing, director of research Rob Helm focuses on Windows and Office products, and provides an update on the expected release dates for upcoming versions, a summary of the business cases for adoption, as well as an overview important items to consider before deciding to purchase / deploy. This TeleBriefing supplements the Directions on Microsoft March 2006 Enterprise Product Roadmap report.

Virtualization technology is emerging as an effective solution for reducing systems management costs and improving hardware utilization on Windows servers. The technology can be use to simplify migration of applications between servers, facilitate consolidation of applications onto fewer servers, and simplify disaster recovery, among other benefits.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Pete Pawlak will outline Microsoft's server virtualization product line and roadmap, including plans for virtualization capabilities built in the Windows Server OS.

Microsoft's long awaited update to SQL Server is finally here. Though customers will likely find improvements to SQL Server 2005 compelling, developers and administrators face a nontrivial learning curve to gain proficiency with SQL Server 2005's new features, and some highly anticipated features were not delivered with the product's initial Nov. 2005 release.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Chris Alliegro will review manageability, scalability, and availability improvements in SQL Server 2005, including the product's new consolidated management tool suite, and its database partitioning and database mirroring features.

In this TeleBriefing, director of research Rob Helm focuses on Windows and Office products, and provides an update on the expected release dates for upcoming versions, a summary of the business cases for adoption, as well as an overview important items to consider before deciding to purchase / deploy. This TeleBriefing supplements the Directions on Microsoft March 2006 Enterprise Product Roadmap report.

Recent changes to Software Assurance (SA) simplify product support rules, add interesting new consulting services for desktop software and introduce free access to new editions of Windows and Virtual PC. Nonetheless, SA remains complex and difficult to evaluate.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Paul DeGroot will provide a summary of notable changes to SA. He will also provide useful tips IT managers can use to simplify the SA decision making process.

Two of the most important leaders in Microsoft's Windows and server businesses are stepping down and the company's top salesman is stepping up, just as Windows Vista is headed for the launching pad. Specifically: Jim Allchin, longtime architect of the company's Windows, server, and developer tools businesses, has announced his retirement at the end of 2006; Eric Rudder, one of Allchin's most important subordinates, has left his post as senior vice president of the Server and Tools unit to return to Bill Gates' architecture team; Kevin Johnson, former head of Microsoft's sales and marketing organization, has been named to replace Allchin and gains responsibility for MSN as well.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analysts Michael Cherry and Matt Rosoff will provide an overview of the reorganization and answer your questions about what it means for Microsoft's customers, partners, and overall direction.

Microsoft offers two distinct sets of rights management technologies: one for protecting digital media, such as movies or music, and one for protecting corporate data, such as documents or e-mails. Although functionally similar, these two technologies are intended for different audiences, are being developed by separate product teams at Microsoft, and are not currently slated to merge or evolve to use a common foundation.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Matt Rosoff will provide an overview of Microsoft's two digital rights management technologies, summarize how they differ, and identify future directions for both. He will also explain how Microsoft has integrated rights management for digital media into the upcoming Vista operating system.

E-mail is now a critical service for business—having surpassed the fax and now on par with the telephone—and is fast becoming a must-have for home users as well. However, with the growth of e-mail has come an explosion of e-mail-borne viruses, phishing attacks, and spam that threatens further growth.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Pete Pawlak will outline likely future developments in Exchange and Outlook to improve messaging security, reduce downtime, and improve performance. He will also provide some advice for organizations evaluating upgrades to Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003.

Microsoft has traditionally thought of service and support as a necessary but uninteresting outgrowth of its core software businesses. Recent activities along with public statements by top Microsoft executives including CEO Steve Ballmer and WW Services VP Rick Devenuti suggest Microsoft now views its service and support operations as a strategic asset.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Paul DeGroot will describe Microsoft's service and support offerings for enterprise customers and partners. He will also outline Microsoft's new service and support strategy and how it is changing Microsoft's support infrastructure and service relationship with top customers and partners.

The presentation complements the recently published article "CSS Leads New Customer Relations Effort" available to subscribers.

To differentiate itself from its Unix and Linux competitors and encourage more use of its core products, Microsoft is integrating management deeply into the Windows Server System. However, the company is still struggling to explain how current products and technologies will evolve to meet the vision expressed in the Dynamic Systems Initiative, Microsoft's long-term plan for "baking" management into all system components, including applications.

In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Pete Pawlak will discuss Microsoft's evolving strategy for systems management. He will also provide a roadmap for current and future versions of Microsoft system management products and technologies, including Systems Management Server, Operations Manager, Virtual Server, and Windows Server Update Services.

The presentation complements the recently published article "Management Product Roadmap Expanding" available to subscribers.

Business Intelligence (BI) systems allow business decision makers to extract actionable information from the volumes of raw data trapped in operational data sources (e.g., CRM or ERP databases) spread throughout their organization. In this TeleBriefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Chris Alliegro will provide an overview of SQL Server's Business Intelligence platform, focusing on significant new features to be delivered in the two main BI components bundled with the forthcoming SQL Server 2005:

• Integration Services, a new utility for building data-integration processes—such as gathering and aggregating data from operational databases to populate a data warehouse—which replaces SQL Server 2000's Data Transformation Services (DTS)
• Analysis Services, a development and management platform for creating online analytic processing (OLAP) and data mining applications that delivers substantially greater analysis capabilities with less coding than its SQL Server 2000 predecessor

The presentation complements the recently published research "Analysis Services Matures in SQL Server 2005" and "Data Integration Improved in SQL Server 2005 available to subscribers.

Ever since the introduction of VB.NET in 2001, Visual Basic developers have been trying to determine whether or not it makes sense to jump to the new version. Microsoft is about to force the decision for any remaining holdouts by ending mainstream support for Visual Basic 6—the only tool capable of maintaining and enhancing applications built on Visual Basic. This means that only companies with support agreements will continue to have access to Microsoft personnel and be able to get updates other than critical security fixes. It also means it is extremely unlikely Microsoft will enhance Visual Basic 6 further.

In this telephone briefing, senior DIRECTIONS analyst Greg DeMichillie will discuss the cost of migrating to VB.NET versus the steadily increasing cost and risk of remaining on Visual Basic 6. The presentation complements the "Microsoft Development Platform Roadmap" analysis recently published to the members area of www.DirectionsOnMicrosoft.com.

Microsoft does not offer a product devoted exclusively to enterprise search. Instead, Microsoft builds search functionality directly into various business and consumer products. It's an approach that continues to confuse customers and partners alike.

In this telephone briefing, Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff will explain Microsoft's approach to enterprise search and identify current and upcoming versions of Microsoft products organizations can use to search internal data sources (such as intranets, messaging systems, file shares, databases, and local hard drives) and enable search of their Web sites (public or access-controlled). Matt will also describe how Microsoft has organized to address the diverse search demands of enterprise customers.

The presentation complements the feature article, "Enterprise Search Strategy Centers on SharePoin" published in the March 2005 Update.