Microsoft's Windows 2000 Application Server

Application Center completes Microsoft’s entry in the application server market. An application server is a software environment for developing and managing distributed applications throughout their life cycles, providing development tools, deployment utilities, run-time support services (component management, load balancing, transaction management, message queuing, data access), and run-time monitoring services. Examples of application servers include BEA Weblogic, IBM Websphere Application Server, iPlanet Application Server, Hewlett-Packard’s recently acquired Bluestone Sapphire/Web, and Oracle 9i Application Server. Although many of these products run on Windows, many also support the Java platform rather than native Windows APIs for application development, making them a competitive threat to Microsoft.

Microsoft doesn’t have a single application server that corresponds to these products. However, it provides development support in Visual Studio 6.0 and basic run-time services in Windows 2000. Application Center augments these with additional features for application deployment, monitoring, and load balancing, giving Microsoft an application server that’s comparable in scope to the competition. The company hopes that customers will take a serious look at its low cost of entry, popular development tools, and tight integration with the operating system.