"After several failed attempts to use marketing to create a corporate
computing platform, Microsoft now is turning to engineering in an
attempt to pull Exchange, SQL Server, Windows and its other
infrastructure servers into a cohesive stack of enterprise software.
Microsoft's engineering effort underlies the Windows Server System,
which was born as a marketing term, but now could potentially become
something quite different.
Microsoft has lumped 19 servers under the Windows Server System banner
and is attempting to lash them together into a cohesive unit with its
Common Engineering Criteria (CEC). The criteria were introduced last
June as a blueprint and set of rules for how servers are developed,
secured, managed, certified, customer approved and licensed."
"The goal is to simplify IT environments, says Bill Hilf, director of
platform technology for Microsoft.
"We should be able to engineer out as much complexity as we can before
the software arrives to the customer," he says. "The way to factor out
that complexity is the integration story.""
"Microsoft's efforts here amount to an acknowledgment by the company
that it previously hasn't had common engineering requirements for its
server products, Davis says.
It's an attempt by the company to compete using "its entire stack of
software instead of point products. Instead of Windows vs. Linux,
Exchange vs. Notes, and have people look at Microsoft's portfolio in its
entirety," he says."
<http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/053005-microsoft-servers.html>
©2005 Bill Anderson |
