Windows

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration services and client software. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s... more

Three product lines from the Windows and Windows Live Division are of primary interest to enterprise customers: the Windows client OS, which includes Windows 7; the Windows Server OS, which includes Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows HPC Server 2008 R2; and Internet Explorer (IE). Customers need to track the status of these Windows products in order to plan for the deployment and maintenance of both desktops and servers and the deployment of other server products, such as SQL Server and Exchange, which may have dependencies on specific Windows versions and service packs.

Windows Client

The Windows client is Microsoft’s primary OS for desktop, laptop, netbook, and tablet computers (collectively, clients). Steve Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, demonstrated a “re-imagined” Windows client at Microsoft’s Build conference in Sept. 2011. The Windows team has announced that the formal name of the next release will be Windows 8, and they have confirmed that a release preview (traditionally called a release candidate) will be available in June 2012.

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