Management Suite Features and Prices Change

Prices will rise in July 2010 for two upgraded System Center management licensing suites, Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) and Server Manager Suite Datacenter (SMSD). New features include Service Manager, a help desk and trouble-ticketing application, and Opalis applications that provide IT process automation. The price increase will be substantial: 31% for SMSE and 75% for SMSD. Although Microsoft maintains that the added features justify the price increases, it is also likely that real-world virtualization scenarios have convinced the company that the SMSD was underpriced for typical installations.

Background on SMSE and SMSD

The SMSE and SMSD are licensing suites that contain the rights to manage a server using four System Center products. These management licenses (MLs) only offer the right to manage the licensed server with a corresponding management server, which is licensed separately. SMSE and SMSD include MLs that permit a server to be managed by the following management applications: