Posted: Oct. 22, 2007

[The articles below were posted between Oct. 1, 2007 and Oct. 22, 2007 and appear in the November 2007 hardcopy edition of Update.]

Systems Management and Security

Free! Management Costs Rise for Virtual Machines

Management tools, such as Operations Manager and Configuration Manager, will now be licensed per operating system environment rather than per device, substantially raising prices for virtualized systems

Configuration Manager 2007 Updates SMS

The next version of Systems Management Server gains Network Access Protection and Wake on LAN support, and has a new name: System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Configuration Manager Licenses More Costly, Restrictive

Configuration Manager 2007 splits the management licenses for servers into Standard and Enterprise versions, requires virtual machines to be licensed separately, and fills out management licensing suites

Virtual Machine Manager Virtually Here

Virtual Machine Manager helps organizations manage Virtual Server 2005 and virtual machines and introduces the System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise

Consumer and Small Business

Free! Free Online Collaboration Service Planned

Office Live Workspace is a free service for individuals to store files online and give others permission to view and edit those files

Zune Gets New Models, Features

New devices and a social networking service have been added to Microsoft's Zune line, but Apple's iPod family remains ahead in nearly every area

Improved Relevance, Interface for Live Search

A larger index, better ranking algorithm, and interface improvements that isolate certain types of information might convince occasional Live Search users to visit the site more often

Connected Home Products Ship

New Media Center Extenders and Windows Home Server software cater to users interested in transferring digital media between multiple machines on a home network

HealthVault to Share Patient Data

A beta version of a Microsoft-hosted online service called HealthVault offers personal medical data storage and enables users to share selected data with healthcare companies

Bungie Jumps

Bungie Studios, the game development studio that was acquired by Microsoft in 2000 and subsequently created the lucrative Halo series, will become an independent company again

Business Applications & Services

Voice, Video Improve in Communications Server 2007

Communications Server 2007 and the Communicator 2007 client have been substantially improved for voice and video

Handsets and Headsets for Communications Server 2007

New desktop VoIP phones (code-named Tanjay) and USB headsets and handsets provide a familiar telephone-like interface to voice communication systems built using Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007

Hosted Messaging and Collaboration Services from Microsoft

Hosted Communications Server, Exchange, and SharePoint anchor new 'Microsoft Online' offerings, but they lack some features of on-premise versions and challenge similar offerings from Microsoft partners

New Performance Management Product Released

PerformancePoint 2007 expands last year's Business Scorecard Manager to help companies more effectively measure business performance, but deployment and management could challenge IT

Windows & Mobile

Stealth Windows Updates

Windows Update ignores the customer's selection for processing updates unless an intermediate system such as Windows Server Update Services is placed between Microsoft and the computer

Application Platform

Web Development with Visual Studio 2008

Better support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript could make Visual Studio more attractive to Web developers who have opted for other tools or even no tools at all

Software Protection Services Ship

Software Licensing and Protection Services will help developers prevent unauthorized use of their products

.NET Source: Look but Don't Touch

Developers will be able to view—but not modify or distribute—the .NET Framework's source code, which could help current .NET developers debug applications but won't attract many new developers

Sales, Marketing, and Services

Licensing Contract, Rules

Volume licensing contracts are getting shorter, and multiple Web sites for license management will be consolidated

Windows XP Availability Extended

Windows XP will be sold through retail and OEM channels through June 30, 2008, rather than terminating at the end of Jan. 2008