Hi all ? I’m David Hastie, senior product manager in the Identity and Security Business Group here at Microsoft. I wanted to flag an announcement Microsoft made today in the area of information protection and data loss prevention. It involves Rights Management Read More...

Excerpt from the post on the SBS blog by group program manager Dean Paron: On behalf of the SBS team, I am extremely pleased to announce that Windows Small Business Server 2008 software has been finalized! Today both SBS Standard and Premium are being Read More...

We've blogged about the use of Windows Server within branch offices several times here and here. Many of them kicked off with the introduction of Windows Server 2003 R2. Today Citrix announced Branch Repeater, which they say is a new line of branch office appliances. Here's a description I received from Citrix: Citrix Branch Repeater debuts with the ability to stage, cache, or pre-position content at the branch using technologies such as Microsoft Windows file services and Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS). These technologies allow Citrix Branch Repeater to pre-position XenApp “Portable Application” installation files for rapid update and delivery to branch employees. The Citrix Branch Repeater also uses Microsoft ISA Server 2006 Web caching to accelerate delivery of web content to the branch. But the repeater goes much further. It can accelerate all TCP-based network traffic to and from the branch using Citrix WANScaler technology. And through integration with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, local branch services are consolidated and delivered locally for optimal performance and availability. In essence, Citrix Branch Repeater does three things that can help you provide better services to your remote or branch offices: (1) it stages streamed apps closer to the branch-based employees by using Citrix XenApp; it consolidates Windows-based branch services; and accelerates WAN app delivery. There are three models to choose from: Citrix Branch Repeater 100 - 1 Mbit appliance, $5,500 list Citrix Branch Repeater 200 - 2 Mbit, $7,500 list Citrix Branch Repeater 300 - 10 Mbit, $11,500 list Patrick Read More...

The team behind Windows Essential Business Server 2008 for midsized companies (part of the newly announced Windows Essential Server Solutions family and formerly known as "Centro") has launched a team blog here . Group Program Manager Eric Watson provides Read More...

In the course of talking to many Microsoft partners and customers, the Windows Small Business Server team has learned that there are sometimes misperceptions about the product, in many cases based on experiences with the earlier versions of SBS. In hopes Read More...

Due to the Martin Luther King holiday in the U.S. on Monday, it was a fairly quiet day on the roads and in the office. But there was a flurry of server virtualization news, news and news out of Redmond. Here are the lightlights: Acquisition of Calista Technologies, whose virtual desktop platform improves the remote desktop experience for running 3D graphics and multimedia capabilities to RDP. For one thing, Calista's technology reduces network bandwidth requirements and can accelerate data rates by as much as 20X. For those of you who are fans of Terminal Services, this acquisition will make TS use much better. Neal Margulis, the founder of Calista, posted here about his views on joining Microsoft. Do you want to run Windows Vista on a server? If so, now you can do so at a lower price point. Check out Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop allows you to run Windows in virtual machines on servers and access them from either PCs or thin clients. The annual subscription to Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop is now roughly $23 per desktop for rich clients covered by Software Assurance for Windows Client. If you want to run thin-clients, you can purchase a subscription for an estimated retail price of $110 per desktop. Citrix is developing software that will easily transfer virtual machines between the Xen hypervisor in Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to ensure greater interoperability. The tool, which is scheduled to be available to beta test in Q2 2008, will transfer all configuration information and driver set of the virtual machines in the Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk image format to run with Hyper-V. From the news release, “XenDesktop, planned for release in second quarter 2008, will support and extend Windows Server 2008 shortly after the availability of Hyper-V” Citrix will extend support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center in all its virtualization products: XenDesktop, Presentation Server and XenServer. a future version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager will support managing Citrix XenServer, and Citrix plans to integrate Hyper-V with Citrix XenServer. And Microsoft has expanded technical support to running MS Office applications via SoftGrid 4.2 or MS Application Virtualization 4.5. Microsoft application virtualization allows customers to pre-configure applications for offline use on a client PC; so end users can be fully productive on their machine, even when they are offline. Four new Solutions Accelerators will help you assess, plan, deploy and secure MS virtualization products [Hyper-V, SoftGrid, Terminal Services]. They’re available in beta form now, and will be GA at the end of February. All of this news, as well as an email from Bob Muglia and today’s webcast, can be accessed here. Patrick Read More...

Today we announced Windows Essential Business Server as the official name for Windows Server codename "Centro," our upcoming IT solution designed for mid-sized organizations. We unveiled details about the product, available here , as well as an initial Read More...

We announced today that the hypercall API, which hypervisor and OS vendors will use to build on top/integrate with Viridian, will be licensed via the Open Specification Promise (OSP). You'll recall that the Microsoft's VHD image format is available via OSP. This license will be available at the time of Viridian RTM. And today we published updated - but still draft - hypercall API specifications for customers/partners to start developing. And as I told eWeek, the WMI interface to Viridian will be available to partners as well, and that interface is based on a standards spec under development in the DMTF. Other than the folks over at Brian Madden, not too many people blogging from Citrix iForum. That ashame because there's alot of good content on app delivery and Citrix's plans to virtualize desktops (i.e., VDI) and datacenters (i.e., Xen). I'll post some photos from this morning's keynote later today. But it was the first time I've seen Peter Levine (former CEO of XenSource, now GM of Citrix's virtualization group) speak. His big message was "10 minutes to Xen" and showed a couple slick demos of XenMotion and XenCenter. He also referenced the hypercall API news that Mike Neil announced on stage just prior to Peter speaking. As for the booth, traffic was decent yesterday (photo below). We're demoing Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop, Windows Server 2008 terminal services (aka, presentation virtualization), SoftGrid, SCVMM and Viridian. The top questions were: Do I still need Citrix if I deploy TS in Windows Server 2008? Answer: depends on your situation, but yes for many scenarios. If you use Citrix today, you'll likely keep doing so. What's the difference between MS SoftGrid and client-side Citrix Presentation Server? Answer: lots of similarities in that they both offer application virtualization and streaming. SoftGrid is fully integrated into System Center (management tools), uses group policy/AD to provision apps to the user, and supports disconnected/mobile users. In the end, you'll want to kick the tires of both. Note that SoftGrid is available via MS desktop optimization pack (MDOP) for Software Assurance. What's the status of work with XenSource on Viridian? Answer: The interop work is progressing well, as is similar work with Novell. I'd imagine seeing fruits of these labors at upcoming release milestones. FYI - this question is in reference to our July 2006 announcement. Read More...

We’ve just launched a major upgrade to http://www.innovateonwindowsserver.com/ , which is an application readiness portal targeting developers of custom and commercial software that also empowers IT Pros to determine application compatibility on Windows Read More...

Steve Bell here, I'm the product manager who owns the software logo program for Windows Server 2008. I've got great news for ISV partners and the IT community. I know the software certification process has been challenging in the past. We listened to Read More...