Updated: July 10, 2020 (February 19, 2007)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,544 wordsTime to read: 8 min

Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007, released Nov. 2006, mark the first major upgrade of Microsoft’s e-mail platform in nearly four years. Besides enhancing existing capabilities, Microsoft added new regulatory compliance (information retention and privacy), unified messaging, and high availability features. While many Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007 features will pique the interest of organizations, upgrading to Exchange 2007 is not as simple as upgrading from Exchange 2000 to 2003, and some of the new capabilities impose additional licensing costs-even for customers covered by Software Assurance contracts.

Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007 include significant improvements in five areas that are important to businesses-availability, regulatory compliance, unified messaging, cost of ownership, and mobility. These features have the potential to justify an investment in deploying Exchange 2007 or upgrading from earlier versions.

Availability

Users have come to count on e-mail to be as reliable and available as the telephone. An expanded set of redundancy features helps Exchange 2007 tolerate failures in individual system components without taking down the whole e-mail service for extended periods of time.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (September 1, 2003)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,077 wordsTime to read: 6 min

Microsoft is keenly interested in building and selling software that can aid collaboration among what it terms “information workers,” especially since many of its leaders realized that enhancing collaboration among its own employees was key to Microsoft’s success. With the imminent launch of Windows SharePoint Services, a free add-on to Windows Server 2003, and Office SharePoint Portal Services 2003, a separately licensed server application, Microsoft hopes to deliver an integrated Web-based collaboration platform that scales from ad hoc sites for small teams to centrally managed corporate intranets and extranets.

Windows SharePoint Services for Team Sites

The foundation of Microsoft’s new collaboration and portal strategy is Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), a document storage and Web site hosting service for Windows Server 2003. Microsoft believes WSS will make group work on documents quicker and less error-prone and will help teams coordinate and organize their work in ways that make sense to them, with little IT support. WSS promises two key functions:

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (July 7, 2008)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,167 wordsTime to read: 6 min
Rob Helm by
Rob Helm

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

The Directions on Microsoft Enterprise Software Roadmap summarizes current and planned versions of Microsoft’s most important enterprise products. The Roadmap provides a single reference for Microsoft customers and partners who need to answer basic planning questions, such as the following:

  • What upgrades will I probably get if I cover Office on an Enterprise Agreement this year?
  • When will support end for Windows XP?
  • When should my company’s software product be ready to run on the next version of SQL Server?
  • Can I deploy Outlook 2007 before I deploy Exchange Server 2007?
  • When should I start training our consultants on the next version of Project?

What This Report Provides

This report supplies information about support retirement dates for past product versions and summaries of features and release dates for current and planned product versions. This information can help Microsoft customers and partners schedule migrations, plan evaluations, arrange training, and budget for purchases.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (March 21, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

564 wordsTime to read: 3 min

Few major technology vendors rely on partners as heavily as Microsoft does. The company sells few products directly to customers and maintains a relatively small field sales force of its own, relying on partner channels to deliver 96% of its revenue. OEMs that preinstall Windows on the PCs they sell account for about a third of Microsoft’s revenue and a larger percentage of its profits. Software developers create thousands of applications that drive sales of Microsoft platforms, such as Windows and SQL Server. Thousands of systems integrators and consultants recommend, deploy, customize, and manage Microsoft-based solutions for their customers. Training partners have taught, tested, and certified more than a million people at some level of expertise on Microsoft products. Software resellers distribute the company’s products worldwide and advise customers on volume licensing.

While partners often like to have exclusive relationships with vendors to help distinguish themselves from their competitors, it is in Microsoft’s interest to encourage as many companies as possible to promote and sell its products. Such competition can drive down prices for customers, making Microsoft solutions more attractive. However, this strategy has serious drawbacks, notably the likelihood that partners who rely on high-volume sales will drive out companies that provide ongoing services and high-quality advice to customers. A well-designed partner program must thus strike a careful balance between encouraging competition and rewarding distinguished service. It must also provide assurances for end customers that the advice they get from partners is accurate, relevant, and suited to the customer.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (April 2, 2007)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

2,288 wordsTime to read: 12 min

Microsoft has fielded a pair of related products for creating and managing team, corporate, and personal portal Web sites. Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0, the latest release of the company’s platform for team collaboration sites, has better features for organizing and storing content than its predecessor. SharePoint Server 2007, which is built on WSS 3.0 and thus inherits all of that product’s features, is the latest version of Microsoft’s strategic platform for corporate portals (the product was formerly called SharePoint Portal Server). SharePoint Server offers incremental improvements for portals and takes on a variety of new roles, including enterprise content management and business intelligence. These new features could expand SharePoint Server’s installed base and offer new opportunities for partners to integrate and customize the product.

For an overview of the tools, services, and applications provided by WSS 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 and the relationship of the two products, see the sidebar “SharePoint Server 2007 Builds on WSS 3.0“.

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Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,077 wordsTime to read: 6 min

Microsoft is keenly interested in building and selling software that can aid collaboration among what it terms “information workers,” especially since many of its leaders realized that enhancing collaboration among its own employees was key to Microsoft’s success. With the imminent launch of Windows SharePoint Services, a free add-on to Windows Server 2003, and Office SharePoint Portal Services 2003, a separately licensed server application, Microsoft hopes to deliver an integrated Web-based collaboration platform that scales from ad hoc sites for small teams to centrally managed corporate intranets and extranets.

Windows SharePoint Services for Team Sites

The foundation of Microsoft’s new collaboration and portal strategy is Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), a document storage and Web site hosting service for Windows Server 2003. Microsoft believes WSS will make group work on documents quicker and less error-prone and will help teams coordinate and organize their work in ways that make sense to them, with little IT support. WSS promises two key functions:

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (June 23, 2003)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

798 wordsTime to read: 4 min

Exchange, Microsoft’s e-mail server product, has been available since 1996 and is second only to SQL Server in generating server application revenues for Microsoft. Furthermore, it is now the dominant corporate e-mail server, with roughly 50% market share in terms of mailboxes served. Although the corporate e-mail server market is fairly stable, and it will be difficult for Microsoft to drive its share higher, the company cannot afford to sit on its heels either: Exchange is a strategic product and it is vital to keep current customers upgrading to new versions, both to keep revenue coming in and to ensure that it remains competitive.

Exchange’s primary client program, Outlook, is also an extraordinarily successful product and is in a similar position. Whether because of its popularity with users, its inclusion in the Microsoft Office suite, or the free Outlook licenses that come with Exchange Client Access Licenses (CALs), Outlook is the market-leading e-mail client, used on more than 60% of all PCs. New features in Outlook could help drive Exchange upgrades and Office upgrades as well.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (November 24, 2003)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

643 wordsTime to read: 4 min

Navigating the complex array of Microsoft licensing policies, procedures, and programs is a financial and legal necessity for any organization using Microsoft software. A company that thoroughly understands Microsoft licensing and how it is changing can stay in compliance without paying for more licenses than it needs, and can budget intelligently for future software purchases. Recent changes, such as per-user licensing, Terminal Server changes, and new support options, make it more critical than ever that Microsoft business customers, salespeople, and service partners understand the company’s volume licensing programs so they can analyze their impact and plan accordingly.

This report offers an overview of Microsoft software licensing for executives who plan and manage IT systems, salespeople and service partners who sell them, and line-of-business managers who approve departmental IT budgets. It pulls together key material on all the major aspects of Microsoft product licensing into one easy-to-digest package, and is suitable for those just getting started as well as those who want to fill gaps in their existing knowledge of licensing.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (March 17, 2003)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,408 wordsTime to read: 8 min
Michael Cherry by
Michael Cherry

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

The cost associated with managing Windows client machines has long been a source of concern for customers. The issue started to garner serious attention among Microsoft executives around 1996, when Oracle and others started to discuss the concept of a “network computer”-a simple terminal whose applications, data, and configuration settings would be provided over the network and managed centrally. The network computer (later to be called “thin client”) approach promised to deliver a far lower total cost of ownership than Windows PCs and spurred Microsoft’s Windows group to design PC management tools and services into Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 did in fact provide much of the architectural framework necessary to address several important client PC management issues, such as enforcing a common configuration across multiple machines and “locking down” users’ PCs. However, in too many respects these capabilities were a “version 1.0” technology. The complex and unforgiving nature of some Windows 2000 technologies-especially Active Directory and Group Policy-along with significant gaps in the accompanying management tool set meant that the Windows 2000’s PC client management features went largely unused by many customers.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (August 7, 2006)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

807 wordsTime to read: 5 min

Few major technology vendors rely on partners as heavily as Microsoft does. The company sells few products directly to customers and maintains a relatively small field sales force of its own-according to the company, its partner channels deliver 96% of its revenue. Even among customers to whom it sells directly-typically large enterprises-the company relies heavily on partners to help make the sale and to provide after-sale services. To ensure that these relationships are fruitful for both partners and Microsoft, the company has extensive programs in place to identify, court, enroll, and manage hundreds of thousands of other companies with which it works. These partner companies span the entire gamut of IT markets, segments, and business models, from global consulting companies with tens of thousands of employees that engage in multibillion-dollar IT deployments to small software companies run out of basements.

OEMs that preinstall Windows on the PCs they sell account for about a third of Microsoft’s revenue and a larger percentage of its profits. Independent software developers create thousands of applications that drive sales of Microsoft platforms, such as Windows and SQL Server. Thousands of systems integrators and consultants recommend, deploy, customize, and manage Microsoft-based solutions for their customers. Training partners have taught, tested, and certified more than a million people at some level of expertise on Microsoft products. Software resellers distribute the company’s products worldwide and advise customers on volume licensing.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (February 20, 2006)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

779 wordsTime to read: 4 min
Michael Cherry by
Michael Cherry

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

Fulfilling its promise to release an interim update for Windows Server 2003 before the end of 2005, Microsoft released Windows Server 2003 R2 in Dec. 2005. This release will interest large organizations with specific branch office, storage management, identity management, and Unix interoperability issues. It will also trigger updates to the Small Business Server product bundle and to the Windows Storage Server platform for Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. In addition, Windows Server 2003 R2 incorporates some functionality that was previously available only in separate feature packs. (For details on these feature packs, see the sidebar “Windows Server Feature Packs“.)

Many Improvements for File Servers

Key areas of improvement in Windows Server 2003 R2 include the following:

Branch offices. Improvements to file services make it easier to publish files to branch offices, replicate files from branch offices, or support document collaboration between offices. A new management console allows administrators to view and manage all the printers in an organization from any server using the new OS. Together, these improvements could simplify central management of servers in offices that have few or no IT staff.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (December 4, 2006)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,645 wordsTime to read: 9 min
Michael Cherry by
Michael Cherry

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

When Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001, Microsoft’s marketing, which focused on “experiences” such as digital photography, gave business customers the perception that Windows XP was primarily for consumers. Many stuck with Windows 2000, then only on the market for 18 months.

Windows Vista enters a very different market and could see more rapid business adoption. Five years have elapsed since the last client edition of Windows was released, Mainstream support has ended for Windows 2000, and Windows XP is now a stable release with its second service pack.

In demonstrating Vista so far, Microsoft has tended to show features such as the Aero user interface, graphical previews of documents during Alt-Tab switching, and the Windows Presentation Foundation. It can be difficult to find a clear and quantifiable link between these features and productivity and security improvements or reduced total cost of ownership.

Nonetheless, Vista includes significant improvements in four areas that are important to businesses-security, manageability, mobile computers, and networking. These features have the potential to justify an investment in deploying Vista.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (March 20, 2006)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

931 wordsTime to read: 5 min

To establish the Windows PC as a home entertainment device, Microsoft is building technologies into Windows that improve the PC’s ability to work with digital audio and video (digital media). This effort continues with Windows Vista, which will support new types of content, particularly high-definition video. The company and its partners are also creating a wide variety of entertainment products and services, from portable audio players to online music stores, that support the PC in this role.

The main goal of this strategy is to increase sales of Windows. Just as demand for Web access and e-mail created a huge spike in consumer PC demand in the mid-1990s, Microsoft hopes that new entertainment scenarios will spur consumer PC sales, particularly because working with digital media requires significant processing power, memory, storage, and other hardware (graphics cards, sound cards, speakers, microphones, and so on) that will require most users to buy a new PC. Microsoft also expects to earn royalties by licensing and selling its digital media technologies to device manufacturers and content distributors.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (December 26, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,911 wordsTime to read: 10 min

Launched in Nov. 2005 after five years in development, SQL Server 2005 includes a long list of new features and enhancements that strengthen the product as both a corporate database management system and a platform for building database applications.

Improvements to SQL Server as a database management system fall into three primary categories:

  • Manageability enhancements that will increase the productivity of database administrators and boost its ease of use, which is one of SQL Server’s main advantages over competitors such as IBM and Oracle in the database market for small and midsize companies
  • New server-side database programming features that could increase developer productivity, improve the stability of database applications, and compete with Java, which IBM and Oracle support for server-side programming.
  • New features in SQL Server’s high-end edition will help customers improve the scalability, performance, and availability of mission-critical databases and the applications

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (December 2, 2002)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

2,068 wordsTime to read: 11 min

Application development is quickly moving away from “roll your own” infrastructure technologies toward packaged application servers that encapsulate current best practices in application development. The upcoming release of Windows Server 2003 marks Microsoft’s formal entry into the application server market, which is currently occupied by two major competitors: BEA WebLogic and IBM WebSphere Application Server. Although, unlike competing products, Microsoft’s Windows Server 2003 isn’t explicitly packaged and labeled as an “application server,” Windows Server 2003 does provide a complete set of core application server functions built in, at no additional cost. Corporate IT planners looking to accelerate application development should include Windows Server 2003 on their evaluation list, especially considering the strength of Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET development tools.

Application servers are software platforms that simplify the development, deployment, and maintenance of large-scale multiuser applications, such as corporate payroll or benefits systems or high-volume e-commerce Web sites. The application server technologies included in Windows Server 2003 are not new; they build on COM-based technologies already present in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, and on the .NET development platform released in early 2002. What is new is the fact that these features are now included in every copy of Microsoft’s server operating system (OS) and that the company is marketing and positioning Windows Server 2003 as an application server. In addition, Windows Server 2003 includes support for Web services-an emerging technology for integrating applications via XML.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (February 7, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

995 wordsTime to read: 5 min
Rob Helm by
Rob Helm

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

The Directions on Microsoft Enterprise Software Roadmap summarizes current and planned versions of Microsoft’s most important enterprise products. The Roadmap provides a single reference for Microsoft customers and partners who need to answer basic planning questions such as the following:

  • What upgrades will I probably get if I cover Office on an Enterprise Agreement this year?
  • When will support end for Windows 2000 Professional?
  • When should my company’s software product be ready to run on the next version of SQL Server?
  • Can I deploy Outlook 2003 before I deploy Exchange Server 2003?
  • When should I start training our consultants on the next version of Project?

What This Report Provides

This report supplies information about support retirement dates for past product versions and summaries of features and release dates for current and planned product versions. This information can help Microsoft customers and partners schedule migrations, plan evaluations, arrange training, and budget for purchases.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (June 4, 2007)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

489 wordsTime to read: 3 min

The Directions on Microsoft Developer Platform Roadmap summarizes current and planned versions of Microsoft’s most important developer technologies and products. The Roadmap provides a single reference for Microsoft customers and partners who need to answer basic planning questions, such as the following:

  • What technologies does Microsoft provide for building the user interface of an application?
  • When does support for Visual Studio (VS) 2003 end?
  • What are my options for building an Office-based client application?

The information in this report is based on our interpretation of the most credible public sources. Microsoft does not endorse this report, and its product plans are subject to change at any time.

Planning for Product Retirements

The life-cycle information provided for past product versions can help organizations prepare for product retirements. Microsoft divides a product’s life cycle into phases, the most important of which are Mainstream, Extended, and Online Self-Help. (For more details on the life cycle, see the chart “Product Life-Cycle Phases and Options“.)

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (February 2, 2004)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

920 wordsTime to read: 5 min
Rob Helm by
Rob Helm

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

The Directions on Microsoft Enterprise Software Roadmap summarizes current and planned versions of Microsoft’s most important enterprise products. The Calendar provides a single reference for Microsoft customers and partners who need to answer basic planning questions such as:

  • What upgrades will I probably get if I cover Office on an Enterprise Agreement this year?
  • When will support end for Windows 2000 Professional?
  • When should my company’s software product be ready to run on the next version of SQL Server?
  • Can I deploy Outlook 2003 before I deploy Exchange Server 2003?
  • When should I start training our consultants on the next version of Project?

What This Report Provides

This report supplies information about support retirement dates for past product versions and summaries of features and release dates for new and planned product versions. This information can help Microsoft customers and partners schedule migrations, plan evaluations, arrange training, and budget for purchases.

Atlas Members have full access

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (May 24, 2004)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

949 wordsTime to read: 5 min
Rob Helm by
Rob Helm

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

The Directions on Microsoft Enterprise Software Roadmap summarizes current and planned versions of Microsoft’s most important enterprise products. The Roadmap provides a single reference for Microsoft customers and partners who need to answer basic planning questions such as:

  • What upgrades will I probably get if I cover Office on an Enterprise Agreement this year?
  • When will support end for Windows 2000 Professional?
  • When should my company’s software product be ready to run on the next version of SQL Server?
  • Can I deploy Outlook 2003 before I deploy Exchange Server 2003?
  • When should I start training our consultants on the next version of Project?

What This Report Provides

This report supplies information about support retirement dates for past product versions and summaries of features and release dates for new and planned product versions. This information can help Microsoft customers and partners schedule migrations, plan evaluations, arrange training, and budget for purchases.

Atlas Members have full access

Get access to this and thousands of other unbiased analyses, roadmaps, decision kits, infographics, reference guides, and more, all included with membership. Comprehensive access to the most in-depth and unbiased expertise for Microsoft enterprise decision-making is waiting.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (June 12, 2006)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

658 wordsTime to read: 4 min

The Directions on Microsoft Developer Platform Roadmap summarizes current and planned versions of Microsoft’s most important developer technologies and products. The Roadmap provides a single reference for Microsoft customers and partners who need to answer basic planning questions, such as the following:

  • What technologies does Microsoft provide for building the user interface of an application?
  • When does support for Visual Studio 2003 end?
  • What are my options for building an Office-based client application?

The information in this report is based on our interpretation of the most credible public sources. Microsoft does not endorse this report, and its product plans are subject to change at any time.

Planning for Product Retirements

The life cycle information provided for past product versions should help organizations prepare for product retirements. Microsoft divides a product’s life cycle into phases, the most important of which are Mainstream, Extended, and Online Self-Help. (For more details on the life cycle, see the chart “Product Life-Cycle Phases and Options“.)

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (August 22, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

2,700 wordsTime to read: 14 min

More than five years in the making, SQL Server 2005 includes major enhancements to its business intelligence (BI) platform. BI is a catch-all term for the process of extracting raw business data from operational data stores (such as sales orders in an enterprise resource planning system) and combining, correlating, and summarizing those data for analysis of business trends and conditions, and to make business-related decisions. Microsoft’s BI platform is a collection of development tools, programming interfaces, run-time services, and management utilities for building BI applications. A more flexible, better performing platform and a new integrated development environment based on Visual Studio 2005, coupled with new data integration, analysis, and reporting features, will help developers create sophisticated BI applications with less custom or third-party code compared with past versions. This set of improvements could drive upgrades to SQL Server 2005 and help Microsoft draw customers with complex, enterprise-class data integration, analysis, and reporting needs away from competitors such as Business Objects, Informatica, and Oracle.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (January 10, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

865 wordsTime to read: 5 min

To establish the Windows PC as the hub of home entertainment, Microsoft is building technologies into Windows that improve the PC’s ability to work with digital audio and video (digital media). The company and its partners are also creating a wide variety of entertainment products and services, from portable audio players to online music stores, that support the PC in this role.

The main goal of this strategy is to increase sales of Windows. Just as demand for Web access and e-mail created a huge spike in consumer PC demand in the mid-1990s, Microsoft hopes that new entertainment scenarios will spur consumer PC sales, particularly because working with audio and video requires significant processing power, memory, storage, and other hardware (graphics cards, soundcards, speakers, microphones, and so on) that will require most users to buy a new PC. Microsoft also expects to earn royalties by licensing and selling its digital media technologies to partners, particularly device manufacturers and content distributors.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (November 21, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

850 wordsTime to read: 5 min
Michael Cherry by
Michael Cherry

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

With the first beta and customer technology previews of Windows Vista, the next major release of the Windows desktop OS (formerly code-named Longhorn client), customers and partners are beginning to examine the accompanying architectural changes to evaluate how they might use these improvements in future applications. Windows Vista, the first of a series of products that Microsoft calls the “Longhorn wave,” will have new programming interfaces, improvements in security, deployment tools to make IT management simpler, and a new user interface. However, the initial preview releases are designed for developers, who need the longest lead times to adopt the new technologies in their applications.

Customers who are concerned about how much time to dedicate to evaluating Windows Vista may want to proceed cautiously, as some of the key new components will also be available on current versions, such as Windows XP SP2, and the feature list for Windows Vista versions is still in flux.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (September 12, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

3,000 wordsTime to read: 15 min

The digital era presents a problem for organizations whose business depends on controlling access to content: once in digital form, content can be copied an infinite number of times with no loss of fidelity and redistributed at lightning speed over computer networks. The recording industry blames digital piracy for several consecutive years of declining revenue. Movie studios remain reluctant to release content on the Internet for fear of a similar outcome. Corporations see employee salaries sent around the company via e-mail or top-secret product plans posted on Web sites.

Rights management, sometimes called digital rights management (DRM), addresses this problem. Rights management technology allows the owner of digital data to define what users may and may not do with that data-that is, their “rights” to that data-and enforces those rights as the data travels among computers and other devices. So far, rights management software has primarily been used as a way for content producers, such as record companies or movie studios, to prevent their content from being used without payment and to support new business models, such as renting music via online services. However, it’s increasingly being used to protect sensitive corporate data, such as documents and e-mail messages, as well.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (October 31, 2005)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

735 wordsTime to read: 4 min

Visual Studio (VS) 2005 is the most significant VS release since the introduction of Visual Studio .NET in 2002. VS is Microsoft’s flagship developer product and provides tools to design, develop, and debug applications for both desktop and server versions of Windows, as well as for devices running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software.

VS 2005 addresses longstanding weaknesses that have caused some customers to delay moving to .NET and also brings a raft of new features designed to help teams of developers, testers, and project managers work together. Partners benefit from new team features that provide a better development platform, although other partners will find that Microsoft is now also a competitor. VS 2005’s integration with SQL Server 2005, a critical product for Microsoft’s Server and Tools division, as well as the possibility of increased tools revenue from the higher-priced team editions offer clear benefits for Microsoft.

Specifically, VS 2005 brings improvements in four major areas: developer productivity, Web development, database programming, and software project management.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (June 25, 2007)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,411 wordsTime to read: 8 min

Operations Manager (OM) 2007 moves beyond monitoring Windows servers to client PCs and non-Windows devices and delivers other marked technical improvements to Microsoft’s computer monitoring product. OM 2007 also takes an important step in Microsoft’s long-term initiative to support highly automated (“dynamic”) IT. In particular, OM 2007 employs computer system models, a technique that Microsoft believes will ultimately enable more automated and reliable systems management. However, Microsoft’s march toward “dynamic IT” will be long, and success is not guaranteed: the company has major product development ahead, and an uphill battle to enlist customer and partner support for model-based systems management.

Beyond Windows Servers for Monitoring

OM is Microsoft’s product for automated monitoring of IT systems, designed to detect problems early and capture data required to resolve them. OM relies on a human operator for problem resolution in most cases, but helps by delivering timely alerts of possible problems, providing reports and documentation for problem diagnosis and resolution, and storing and running scripts to resolve recurring problems. The goal is to avoid downtime by enabling an early response-possibly before users have even noticed a problem-and making it more likely that the response is the correct one and does not create further problems.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (April 16, 2007)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

2,304 wordsTime to read: 12 min

Over the last two years, Microsoft has substantially expanded its product lines for business intelligence (BI), the process of extracting raw data from operational business applications and databases and analyzing the data to help organizations and workers make business decisions. Ideally, BI solutions allow workers to make better decisions based on hard data from day-to-day business activities. Typical BI users could include the following:

  • A regional manager in a retail sporting goods chain who examines seasonal or demographic sales patterns from customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to plan product promotions or campaigns
  • Security personnel at a financial institution who search transaction records for specific credit-card use patterns that are indicative of fraud
  • Analysts at a large parts manufacturer/distributor who use historical data from an ERP system and predictive models to forecast product demand and manage inventory.

Historically, Microsoft’s strategy has centered on the SQL Server BI platform, bundled tools and services for consolidating historical data from business applications and summarizing and distributing the data. (Consolidated data are frequently stored in specialized data warehouses, historical databases dedicated to BI.) While bundled with the SQL Server product, Microsoft’s BI platform can work with data warehouses or application data managed with other technologies, including IBM DB2 databases, Oracle databases, flat files, and others.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (October 15, 2007)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,771 wordsTime to read: 9 min
Rob Helm by
Rob Helm

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

Communications Server 2007 is Microsoft’s latest platform for unified communications, which provides instant messaging (IM), user presence, voice, e-mail and other communications services over a single network and directory infrastructure. Unified communications promises to reduce ongoing equipment and service charges, simplify management, and make communication more efficient for users. Communications Server 2007 will be a more credible unified communications platform than past versions thanks to dramatically improved voice features and new support for Web conferences, which combine voice with synchronized PowerPoint presentations and other data sharing features. However, unified communications technology is relatively new and imposes significant upfront costs, so most organizations will move in stages as the technology and Microsoft’s offerings are proven.

Improvements Focus on Voice and Web Conferencing

First introduced in early 2004 (under the name Live Communications Server), Communications Server and its associated client, Communicator, supported enterprise IM and presence tracking. IM enables users to send short text messages to other online users, and presence indicates whether users are actively using a PC or other device and are willing to receive IM or other communications at the device. With each subsequent release, Communications Server and Communicator have added more support for other forms of communication, such as voice calls, video calls, and application sharing. The 2007 versions of these products now support three main forms of real-time communication:

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (August 9, 2004)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,500 wordsTime to read: 8 min

Microsoft’s systems management software has become increasingly important to its customers and to the company. Broadly defined, systems management software helps automate some of the routine work of computer systems administrators, yielding higher availability of IT services with less staff. Recent events suggest that systems management has gained a higher priority at Microsoft and that the company has begun to execute on a plan that, if successful, could markedly simplify the life of Windows administrators.

Management Software Includes OS, Products

Microsoft’s systems management software today helps administrators configure computers; deploy, install, and patch applications; monitor the health of systems in operation; and track hardware and software. The goal is to automate these kinds of tasks so they can be done more cheaply, more reliably, and on larger numbers of systems and sites.

Microsoft distributes systems management software in two ways:

Windows OS features such as Automated Deployment Services, Group Policy, and the Windows System Resource Manager help administrators deploy and configure computers. Windows also delivers base infrastructure, such as the Windows Management Instrumentation monitoring and configuration interface, that is used by OS features and systems management products.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (July 12, 2004)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

893 wordsTime to read: 5 min
Michael Cherry by
Michael Cherry

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

Many organizations are considering reducing or consolidating the number of servers they use for their computing infrastructure, general computing, and line-of-business applications. This trend is being driven by improvements in hardware, such as the availability of inexpensive 64-bit and multiprocessor computers, software such as Windows Server 2003 that exploit the hardware advances, and the desire to solve the problems inherent in managing large numbers of servers, such as keeping the software up-to-date with the latest security patches. The goals of server consolidation are to create a more manageable and reliable infrastructure and improve the efficiencies of IT investments, including both capital and operating costs.

What Is Server Consolidation?

Thanks to the initial low cost of Intel-based servers, it has become common practice for organizations to add capacity or new capabilities simply by adding another server. This practice combined with a lack of IT controls and processes, legitimate concerns about overloading existing processing and storage capabilities, and bad application design that created applications that could not coexist on a single server has led to server proliferation.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (September 13, 2004)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

2,023 wordsTime to read: 11 min

BizTalk Server 2004, the successor to BizTalk Server 2002, became generally available in Apr. 2004 and offers significant changes to the product’s underlying architecture, improved support for Web services, a new integrated development environment based on Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET), and a host of new tools and capabilities for business and IT workers. These changes could drive BizTalk Server adoption and in turn further Microsoft’s push to establish the .NET platform as the preferred tool for Web services development. Customers will also benefit from the improved product: relative to previous versions, BizTalk 2004 will yield faster BizTalk applications, easier solutions development, and new integration scenarios, such as human-oriented workflow applications. In addition, opportunities abound for partners. For example, broad adoption of the product will fuel demand for interfaces that allow BizTalk to communicate with external applications, and many businesses will require the assistance of integrators and ISVs to build and deploy complex BizTalk Server solutions.

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Updated: July 10, 2020 (March 1, 2004)

  Analyst Report Archived

Introduction

My Atlas / Analyst Reports

1,499 wordsTime to read: 8 min
Michael Cherry by
Michael Cherry

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

Since the introduction of its Trustworthy Computing initiative in Jan. 2002, Microsoft has focused substantial resources on addressing customers’ security concerns, as well as reliability and privacy issues with its products. Beginning with the Windows Division and moving to other product groups, internal reviews of Microsoft technologies, processes, and practices are having a measurable positive impact. However, the ultimate goal of Trustworthy Computing-a point where customers trust and rely on computers at the same level that they trust and rely on telephones-is still far from being realized. For Trustworthy Computing, to borrow a famous quote from Winston Churchill, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Security Is the Cornerstone

Security-assuring that the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and systems are protected from attack-is the cornerstone of Trustworthy Computing. Unless security vulnerabilities are addressed first, reliability and privacy cannot be assured. For example, if security vulnerabilities bring a line-of-business server offline for repair, then reliability and privacy goals are hopelessly undermined. (See the sidebar “Consequences of Poor Computer Security“.)

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