Muglia Lifts the Covers on Upcoming Products at Tech Ed

Published: June 6, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Server and Tools chief Bob Muglia provided some details about Microsoft's upcoming product roadmap during a keynote address at the Tech Ed 2007 show in Orlando this week. Muglia discussed a wide range of existing and upcoming products, including SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, the .NET Framework version 3.5, BizTalk Server 2006 R2, BizTalk Services, the "Stirling" Forefront security tools (announced this week), Windows Server 2008's server core feature, and two acquisitions.

During his keynote address Monday, Muglia covered some of Microsoft's recent product announcements and provided some insight into products the company plans to ship in the next few months. Things kicked off with a couple of excepted name changes. This included formally naming the next release of SQL Server, which had gone by the codename "Katmai," the official name SQL Server 2008. The company also announced the availability of the first SQL Server 2008 test version, which was released as a Community Technology Preview (CTP).

Similarly, Microsoft formally named the next release of Visual Studio, which had gone by the codename "Orcas," Visual Studio 2008. The company also announced that the second beta release of Visual Studio 2008 will ship later this summer, and will include the Visual Studio Shell, which Microsoft bills as a new offering that will allow developers to create and distribute their own custom tools built on the development environment.

On the integration and services oriented architecture (SOA) front, Microsoft made three announcements, including the availability of the first public beta of the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5, the first CTP of BizTalk Services, and the planned availability of BizTalk Server 2006 Release 2 (R2) during the third quarter.

BizTalk Services is as an "incubation project" that will enable businesses to boost their capability to communicate across the Internet, according to Mike Woods, a Microsoft employee who conducted a demo of BizTalk Services. Woods described the services as a "software in the cloud that makes it very easy for customers to communicate across organizational boundaries." The product will ship with two services enabled out of the box, including a federated identity service and a firewall friendly messaging service, with more services being added in the future, he says.

Microsoft says BizTalk Server 2006 R2, which is still in tests at Beta 2, will support for radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure, provide "native support" for electronic data interchange (EDI), and provide better support for .NET Framework version 3, Office 2007, and Windows Vista.

Microsoft also announced that it would offer its Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server as one of the server core options with Windows Server 2008. Microsoft is trying to reduce the complexity and attack surface of its server operating system by installing only the components needed to accomplish a given task. The company had previously announced plans to support Active Directory, file serving, DHTTP, and DNS workloads under its server core program, and now its HTTP server has been added to the list.

Muglia discussed two previously undisclosed acquisitions that Microsoft has recently made. The first is Engyro, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based developer of systems management products that should boost the capability of Microsoft's Systems Center products to interoperate with other systems management tools.

The second was the acquisition of a set of SQL Server-based reporting tools from Dundas Data Visualization, which is based in Toronto, Ontario. Microsoft obtained three products from Dundas, including the Dundas Chart for Reporting Services, Dundas Gauge for Reporting Services, and Dundas Calendar for Reporting Services. The products are expected to be included in SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.

Muglia also discussed Stirling, the codename for the upcoming launch of Microsoft's server-based Forefront security tools. For more information on Stirling, see the story "Microsoft Unveils 'Stirling' Security Suite" located elsewhere in this newsletter.

Muglia also invited Gartner analyst Tom Bittman onto the stage. Bittman, who once worked in IBM's AS/400 server division, emphasized the need to have IT systems that enable businesses to act quickly and decisively when opportunities arise.

Bittman used an analogy about the impatience of children and the Internet to demonstrate how technology is affecting, and will continue to affect, business. "We know how kids operate--kids want everything right now, they want everything immediately. And we grew up learning that that just didn't quite work out that way," Bittman says.

"Now, why is that important? Because our kids are becoming the new workforce," he says. "And what that's doing is that's creating a very big change in windows of opportunity. Windows of opportunity are getting smaller. They're more frequent but they're smaller. And the businesses that can capture those opportunities are the ones that are going to win."

Muglia concluded with a few remarks. "We think it's a great year," Muglia says "A lot of great products have shipped over the last six months. A lot of great products will ship . . . There's lots of great opportunity to build business applications that are easy to manage and easy to service."

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