Microsoft preaches product visions

Microsoft will blur the line between podium and pulpit this week at its TechEd 2003 conference in Dallas to drum up support for Trustworthy Computing and upcoming releases of SQL Server, Windows Storage Server, and the Office applications suite.

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The SQL Server team will announce Reporting Services, which will take the output of the database's Analysis Services BI (business intelligence) function and turn it into either a Web report or a hard copy, according to Barry Goffe, group manager of enterprise marketing strategy at the Redmond, Wash.-based company.

"Reporting Services is a reporting platform that supports Web services-based interfaces to allow developers to build custom apps," Goffe said.

A beta version of Yukon, the next version of the SQL Server database, may also be unveiled at the show. Microsoft has pledged to release a beta in the first half of 2003, meaning the company has until the end of this month to meet its deadline. Yukon will focus on improvements in BI and security.

Meanwhile, the Exchange team plans to announce Release Candidate 1 of Exchange Server 2003, Goffe said. Exchange Server 2003 focuses on improvements such as making it easier to link the platform to Microsoft's Active Directory services.

The company will also discuss a road map for Jupiter, which will combine Microsoft's e-business products, the BizTalk Server integration system, Content Management Server, and Commerce Server, according to Goffe.

Also planned for the show is the announcement of a security certification program for administrators, featuring courses and testing. The program is part of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative.

A point of the program is that security extends beyond technology and is an issue pertinent to both deployment and management, Goffe said.

The software vendor is also expected to announce having released to manufacturing the code for Windows Storage Server 2003, according to Claude Lorenson, product manager at Microsoft's Enterprise Storage Division. The new release will offer features such as data directing and filtering. The new file server will also offer point-in-time copying, file replication, and server clustering.

Lorenson said Windows Storage Server 2003 will likely ship this September.

An analyst familiar with Microsoft's TechEd plans said he expects Microsoft to preach the benefits of its Windows platform over Linux.

"The overlaying message that they're going to try to convey is, first of all, Microsoft software is designed to fit, to all work together, whereas Linux is somewhat more chaotic in that respect," said analyst Rob Helm, research director at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Wash. "The case that they try to make is that [Windows] will end up giving you a lower cost of ownership even if the front cost of the software is higher." But Microsoft's Goffe contended that the software giant would not belittle competitors at the show.

Microsoft will also try to combat the notion that IT is no longer worth investing in, Helm and Goffe agreed.

"I think the point of the show to a large extent is not to break a huge amount of news but to promote the current line of products, teach people how to use them, [and give] the message that it's OK to spend money on IT," Helm said.

Goffe said Microsoft will stress that there still is investment to be made in IT and that customers should keep their systems in-house rather than opt to outsource. "We don't believe that the model of [giving] responsibility for your strategic assets to a third party is a responsible approach," Goffe said.

Third-party announcements will abound at TechEd, particularly in the areas of storage and security.

Hewlett-Packard will introduce its HP StorageWorks NAS s1000 rack-mounted storage system. The box is intended for file-serving applications at small or midsize businesses or remote offices at enterprise-level companies.

"This is where people will want to centralize the storage of things like Microsoft PowerPoint [or] Excel [files] -- any kind of flat-file data that they have either as corporate data or individuals' data on workstations," said Richard Archibald, vice president and general manager of HP's infrastructure and NAS division in Loveland, Colo.

Veritas will introduce Veritas Edition for Exchange 2000, which automates the recovery of Exchange databases. The software code essentially performs what Microsoft laid out in a 20-page document, namely the rapid recovery of point-in-time copies of snapshots taken by Veritas' NetBackup or Backup Exec products, said Bob Maness, senior director of product marketing at Mountain View, Calif.-based Veritas.

ConfigureSoft plans to announce ECM (Enterprise Configuration Manager) Version 4.5, which the company said will prevent security vulnerabilities and downtime by automatically rolling back server and workstation configurations to preset standards when they are inadvertently changed.

On the security side, Symantec will announce Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange, a mail-security offering that consists of content filtering, spam prevention, and anti-virus protection against worms, Trojan horses, and blended threats. The product is available now.

Also in the Exchange vein, anti-spam and anti-virus software vendor Sybari Software will announce that it is shipping Antigen 7.5 for Microsoft Exchange and Sybari Spam Manager and Antigen for SMTP Gateways, both of which are anti-virus software.

Merant will introduce Merant Dimensions Enterprise Edition, a change-management offering that supports mainframe and distributed platforms, including Web server components. The company will also announce Merant Dimensions 8.0, a change-management platform that focuses on managing assets, processes, and change across the enterprise.