November 17th, 2009

Three new codenames and how they fit into Microsoft's cloud vision

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:09 pm

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Code names, Corporate strategy, Database, Development tools, PDC 2009, Red Dog, SQL Server, Utility/cloud computing, Windows server

Tags: SDK, Vision, Microsoft Corp., Dataset, Microsoft Windows, .Net, Operating Systems, Software, Software Development, Software/Web Development

Any Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) wouldn’t be complete without a few new codenames. On November 17, Microsoft introduced three new ones that all are related to Microsoft’s evolving cloud-computing vision and infrastructure.

During the Day One set of keynotes, Microsoft officials attempted to explain further how the company’s three-screens-and-a-cloud vision will take shape in product and service form.

Last year, when it rolled out its first Windows Azure Community Technology Preview, Microsoft showed a “layer cake” type diagram which showed all of the various Azure layers and components as a comprehensive whole. (See last year’s layer cake at right.)

This year, there was no diagram. The new message is that Microsoft’s cloud is comprised of Windows Azure (the Red Dog operating system), SQL Azure and a new AppFabric development platform. That’s it. Gone are the Live Services, .Net Services, SharePoint Services, and Dynamics CRM Services that wer all part of the original platform.

Did Microsoft decide its original vision was too ambitious? It seems more the case that it has decided some of the original pieces didn’t belong as part of the core Azure platform, such as Live Services, which are now part of Windows/Windows Live. In other cases, Microsoft has repackaged other elements of its original platform in different ways (example: the slimmed-down .Net Services is now part of AppFabric).

In the midst of all this movement, Microsoft introduced the three new cloud-related codenames today. How do they fit into Microsoft’s newly flattened cloud cake?

* Project Sydney: Technology that enables customers to connect securely their on-premises and cloud servers. Some of the underlying technologies that are enabling it include IPSec, IPV6 and Microsoft’s Geneva federated-identity capability. It could be used for a variety of applications, such as allowing developers to fail over cloud apps to on-premises servers or to run an app that is structured to run on both on-premises and cloud servers, for example. Sydney is slated to go to beta early next year and go final in 2010.

* Dallas: Microsoft’s “data-as-a-service” offering. Dallas is a new service built on top of SQL Azure that will provide users with access to free and paid collections of public and commercial data sets that they can use in developing applications. The datasets are available via Microsoft’s PinPoint partner/ISV site. Dallas is hosted on Azure already and is available as of today as an invitation-only CTP. No word on when Microsoft is hoping to release the final version of the service.

* AppFabric: AppFabric is a collection of existing Azure developer components, including the “Dublin” app server, “Velocity” caching technology, and .Net Services (the service bus and access control services). The version of the Windows Server AppFabric on-premises version of the product is available for download today, with final availability slated for 2010. Community Technology Previews (CTPs) of the Windows Azure AppFabric version are slated to be available during 2010. No word on when the final Azure-based version will be out. (Note: The CTPs of the Access Control and Service Bus technologies are still available separately in CTP form today.)

Microsoft made available last week a November release of its own Windows Azure SDK and related tools. The new releases include an update to Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio, which extends VS 2008 and VS2010 Beta 2 so they can create, configure, build, debug and run Web apps and services on Windows Azure.

Roger Jennings, a cloud computing expert and author of the Oakleaf Systems blog said that the November release of the Windows Azure SDK includes “something Azure devs have been asking for and needed to compete with AWS EC2 (Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Cloud 2): Variable-size virtual machines (VMs). Using that featue, Azure developers may now specify the size of the virtual machine to which they wish to deploy a role instance, based on the role’s resource requirements. The size of the VM determines the number of CPU cores, the memory capacity, and the local file system size allocated to a running instance, Jennings noted.

In a similar vein, Amazon quietly released on November 11 version 1.0 of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) software development kit for .Net. The SDK allows developers to “get started in minutes with a single, downloadable package complete with VIsual Studio project templates, the AWS .Net library, C# code samples and documentation,” according to a note Amazon forwarded me over the weekend.

November 16th, 2009

Microsoft opens Windows Marketplace to Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1 phone users

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:05 pm

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, OEMs, Windows server

Tags: Phone, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications, Handhelds, Telecom & Utilities

When Microsoft first announced officially its plans for Windows Marketplace for Mobile, company officials said they’d eventually open the phone app store to users with phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1.

On November 16, the company made good on that commitment, making the announcement on the Windows Phone Team Blog.

Until today, the Windows Marketplace for Mobile site was usuable by Windows Mobile 6.5 phone customers only. By adding 6.0 and 6.1 phone users to the pool of customers who can buy and download apps from the site, Microsoft can now claim that the Marketplace is accessible by 30 million devices. (That’s one claim you can count on the Softies playing up, in the hopes of attracting more developers to write apps for the platform.)

Microsoft needs more customer and developer love for the Windows Mobile platform, and that love can come none to soon. Last week, Gartner Group analysts issued a report that found Microsoft has lost a third of its worldwide marketshare for Windows Mobile in the past year.

When Microsoft opened the Windows Marketplace for Mobile site in October this year, it offered 246 applications on it.

Last week, Microsoft introduced a synchronization feature that allows users to download apps for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones from the Marketplace onto their PCs, not just directly onto their phones.

Microsoft is holding its invitation-only Mobius conference this week in Redmond. Only some of what is shown at that annual event is under non-disclosure. Will the Softies share info with the invited mobile bloggers and analysts about Windows Mobile 7.0 — or anything else that will give folks hope for the future of the platform? Guess we’ll find out in the coming days….

In the interim, I’ve taken a pass (again) on buying a Windows Mobile phone. Verizon still doesn’t have any models I like (a good QWERTY keyboard is non-negotiable for me, as is a simple user interface that I don’t need a manual to decipher). And Verizon folks at my local store are still advising users against going with Windows Mobile unless they absolutely must use that operating system, claiming a high rate of returns. Maybe there really are some more compelling Windows Mobile devices in the pipeline, but if there are, no one I’ve spoken with seems to know about them or be able to talk about them (publicly or privately)….

November 16th, 2009

Microsoft makes available new high performance Windows Server test build

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:00 am

Categories: Azure, Channel, Corporate strategy, OEMs, Office 2010/Office 14, Red Dog, Resellers, System builders, Utility/cloud computing, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows server

Tags: Microsoft Windows Server, High-performance, Server, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Corp., Beta, Supercomputing, HPC Server, Leadership, Management

Microsoft made available on November 16 a code-complete beta of Windows HPC (High Performance Computing) Server 2008 R2 to selected testers.

The company made the announcement at the Supercomputing 2009 show in Portland, Oreg., where officials said they planned to provide all of the 4,500 or so of the attendees with the bits today. Microsoft also will be providing select testers with access to the downloadable beta via the Connect site today. Microsoft is expecting to release at least one more beta of HPC Server 2008 R2 before rolling out the final version some time in 2010.

HPC Server enables cluster supercomputing on x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 R2. The new release that is in testing is Microsoft’s third iteration of the product.

With the HPC Server 2008 R2 beta, testers can run the test builds of Excel 2010 and Visual Studio 2010, supporting the development and use of parallel and scalable applications, Microsoft officials said.

Microsoft and its partners have been making a concerted effort to increase the appeal of its HPC Server product beyond the small segment of scientists and engineers who typically use supercomputers. Last week, Dell announced it would be the exclusive distributor of the Cray CX1 supercomputing workstation, which runs Windows 7 integrated with HPC Server on a single box.

“We’re trying to make HPC more mainstream and accessible” to more engineers, financial quants and others in a variety of large and mid-size organizations, said Vince Mendillo, Microsoft Senior Director of High Performance Computing. To do this, the team is focused on providing new tools and techniques making HPC Server easier to set up and deploy, Mendillo said.

When Microsoft introduced the first version of HPC Server, Linux dominated the supercomputing market. Since then, Microsoft has been making inroads in market share and performance. Last year, Microsoft added “thousands of customers in large scale organizations” for the product, Mendillo said. (He declined provide any more specific data.) Microsoft now has 159 independent software vendor partners developing applications for HPC Server, Mendillo added.

Because HPC Server is part of the overall Windows Server family, MIcrosoft will fold back into the core Windows Server codebase new developments made by the HPC team. Mendillo said that some of the new parallel enhancements in the new HPC Server release would likely be useful to the Windows Azure team, which is building MIcrosoft’s cloud-computing offering.

November 12th, 2009

Microsoft readies shared classroom server for 2010 debut

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 12:55 pm

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, OEMs, Resellers, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows server

Tags: Server, Microsoft Corp., Teacher, MultiPoint Server, Microsoft Windows, Branding, Desktops, Operating Systems, Software, Marketing

Microsoft is growing its MultiPoint franchise, adding to its line-up in 2010 with a new MultiPoint Server 2010 product.

Windows MultiPoint — a product developed largely by Microsoft in India and which Microsoft officially unveiled in 2006 — enabled multiple users to access a single host computer. The product was geared toward students and teachers, especially those in developing countries.

Microsoft is changing the name of the original MultiPoint product to MultiPount Mouse SDK (software development kit).

In the first half of 2010, Microsoft will introduce MultiPoint Server 2010, which is a host-run operating system that enables multiple users to each run different applications from their own “user stations.”  The new server product is being developed in Microsoft Corporate Vice President Amit Mital’s organization, the Startup Business Group, which was formed when the former Startup Business Accelerator and Unlimited Potential Group teams were merged under Mital.

A spokesperson sent me the following positioning statement for the Server version of the product:

“Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 allows schools to provide independent computing to more students for the same budget. Teachers can assign and distribute work assignments based on each student’s level and need, or establish a consistent experience, depending on the needs of the class.”

Microsoft is touting the forthcoming MultiPoint Server as being designed for non-technical professionals, so they won’t need a consultant or administrator to set up and manage the system.

MultiPoint Server maps a USB 2.0 keyboard, mouse, and headset to a monitor to create a student station. Each station gets an individual Windows desktop. The teacher management interface is called the MultiPoint Manager and allows the management of desktops, student accounts, and student sessions, plus provides teachers with a way to distribute content to students’ desktops.

The MultiPoint Server product will be available through both OEM and Academic volume licensing channels, company officials said. At launch, it will be available in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 will have the same application requirements as Remote Desktop Services on Windows Server 2008 R2 (and is based on Windows Server 2008) officials said. The user stations in the configuration do not require an operating system of any kind on them. No word yet on pricing.

November 12th, 2009

PDC 2009: Tune in for our live blogging frenzy next week

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:31 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Big Brains, Multicore/distributed computing, Office 2010/Office 14, PDC 2009, Red Dog, Research, Silverlight (wpf/e), Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server")

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Professional Developers Conference Keynote, Blogging, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009 kicks off the week of November 16. Like we did last year, a handful of us Microsoft watchers will be live blogging the keynotes as a group.

The PDC keynotes are slated for Tuesday November 17 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. PT and Wednesday November 18 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. We’ll be using CoverItLive to blog, so the more of you who chime in and comment along with us, the merrier. Your group-blogging hosts (besides me) will be Ed Bott, Kip Kniskern, Paul Thurrott, Rafael Rivera, Tom Warren and Long Zheng

Come back here next week and watch along with us as Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie; Server and Tools President Bob Muglia; Kurt DelBene, Senior VP of Microsoft’s Office Business Productivity Group and more talk about what’s coming for developers in the next year. (I’ll post the CoverItLive viewer on my site during keynote viewing hours next week.)

There will be new info on Microsoft’s Azure cloud operating environment, .Net 4.0, Oslo, Office 2010, Silverlight, SQL Server and more. And more than a few of the “Big Brains” — Microsoft’s Technical Fellows — are on tap to present during the four-day confab.  I’ve already posted about some of what’s on tap (and not on tap) for PDC 2009 over the past few weeks. Expect lots more PDC news on my blog throughout the week next week.

Hope to see you (virtually) and/or live in Los Angeles next week!

November 10th, 2009

Microsoft whittles away at Oslo; now plans to fold it into SQL Server

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:23 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Code names, Corporate strategy, Database, Development tools, Oslo, PDC 2009, SQL Server, Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas), Windows server

Tags: Oslo, Microsoft SQL Server, Server, Microsoft Corp., Databases, Research & Development, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Business Operations

There are few initiatives at Microsoft that have undergone as many twists and turns as Oslo, Microsoft’s modeling platform/strategy.

On November 10, Microsoft announced the latest Oslo shift: Oslo’s three main remaining components are going to be be renamed “SQL Server Modeling” and be folded into some future release of Microsoft’s database.

In 2007, Microsoft first discussed publicly its plans for “Oslo” — an amorphous multiproduct effort that encompased future releases of .Net, Visual Studio, BizTalk and SQL Server. By the fall of 2008, Microsoft had decoupled .Net, VIsual Studio, BizTalk and SQL Server from Oslo. When officials said Oslo, they meant Microsoft’s evolving modeling strategy and technologies, specifically the M language, the Quadrant tool and the metadata repository. This past summer, as part of one of Microsoft’s countless reorgs, the Oslo team was combined with Microsoft’s Data Programmability team (which manages Astoria, Entity Data Model (EDM), Entity Framework (EF), XML, ADO.Net and tools/designers).

Going into the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009 next week, Microsoft is planning to make available a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of Oslo, which will be its first since May 2009. This new CTP will be known as the SQL Server Modeling CTP.

According to a November 10 blog posting by Product Unit Manager Doug Purdy, this new CTP “will begin to demonstrate how developers will use these (Oslo) technologies in concert with things like T-SQL, ADO.NET, ASP.NET and other parts of the .NET Framework to build database applications.”

“All of these components are now part of SQL Server and will ship with a future release of that product,” Purdy blogged this week. (Purdy doesn’t specify a ship date target, but I’m doubtful it will be in time for the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 R2, which is due out in the first half of 2010.)

As of next week, Microsoft also plans to integrate the Oslo” Developer Center and the Data Developer Center into a new site, http://msdn.microsoft.com/data.

On Twitter, the overwhelming sentiment about the latest change in Oslo’s direction are largely negative. Here are a few reactions:

Scott Banwart: With this announcement, I no longer see the point of Oslo.

Tomas Restrepo: Cynical thought of the day: Oslo == Longhorn. OK, could’ve been worse (i.e. Cairo).

James Hart: Any expectations anybody had for what Oslo might turn out to be came from their own imagination. Disappointment was inevitable.

Ryan Rinaldi: The Oslo story just got more confusing.

Steve Bohlen: good lord; Oslo follows in the footsteps of WinFS; big (if nebulous) idea degenerates into dull implementation w dubious value

Sean Munger: Friends dumbstruck at flying saucers descending over Oslo. (Oops. Maybe a different Oslo)

Any developers out there see a silver lining in the latest Oslo moves? Or is it time for the aliens to rush in and take over?

November 9th, 2009

Which should a small business choose: Windows Home Server or Windows Server Foundation?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:36 pm

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Database, Exchange Server, Management tools, OEMs, Resellers, SQL Server, System Center, System builders, Virtualization, Windows Essential Business Server (Centro), Windows Home Server, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows Small Business Server (Cougar), Windows server

Tags: Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Windows Home Server, Small Business, Microsoft Windows, Servers, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, Mary Jo Foley

Until quite recently, Microsoft officials emphasized the “home” in Windows Home Server (WHS) when explaining how that product fit into its server line-up.

Last week, however, something changed. Microsoft officials added small office/home office (SOHO) users to its list of potential customers for WHS. On November 5, the WHS team posted a new blog entry entitled “Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server in your SOHO.” From that post:

“Don’t let the name Windows Home Server fool you into thinking that this product was created for home use only. A lot of the reasons that you would use Windows Home Server in your home are just as applicable to a small or home office. Windows Home Server provides a dependable and affordable way to organize and safeguard your work on up to 10 computers.”

Up until this point, Microsoft’s business-focused Windows Server family looked like this (with entry-level servers listed first):

• Windows Server Foundation
• Windows Server Standard
• Windows Server Enterprise
• Windows Server Datacenter

Other “specialty” versions include the Web Edition, Windows Small Business Server and Windows Essential Business Server. (The latter two bundle together various Microsoft applications, like Exchange Server and SQL Server, with Windows Server.)

Microsoft delivered the first release of Foundation Server in April 2009. The R2 version of Windows Server Foundation is globally available (covering all countries in Western Europe, Central Eastern Europe, France, German and Korea and Middle East/Africa) as of this week. Like WHS, Foundation is primarily an OEM product. The first release of Foundation was available preloaded on servers from Dell, HP, NEC and Fujitsu. The R2 version will be sold by these same server vendors, plus IBM, Lenovo, Acer and local OEMs such as Wortmann (in Germany) Datateknik (Turkey) Lanix (Mexico), Positivo (Brazil) and NTT (Japan), among others, according to the company.

So which should a small business user choose: Foundation or WHS? The biggest difference seems to be in the number of users that are supported. Foundation scales up to 15, while Home Server only supports up to 10, company officials said. In addition, Home Server is also designed specifically as a media server, with storage and file backup features for movies, music and photos,” a spokesperson added when I asked for more information.

“Windows Home Server is for people who work and play at home,” said Eugene Saburi, General Manager in the Windows Server & Solutions Division. “And it’s still based on Windows Server 2003,” at this point, he said. “Windows Foundation is more of a general-purpose platform,” Saburi added. “You can install a line-of-business app on it.”

(There’s no official word on when Microsoft plans to upgrade WHS so that it is based on Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2. Maybe that’s “Vail” — which could be out next year if the latest rumors are right.)

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering when will the R2-inclusive versions of Windows Small Business Server and Windows Essential Business Server will be out, Microsoft officials aren’t saying. They are not talking about a month, a quarter or even a year (!) in terms of shipping commitments for these two products. Sigh.

One would think it wouldn’t take the Softies long to update the existing SBS and EBS products to include the “minor” Windows Server 2008 R2 update… but if they also include the new Exchange Server 2010 bits, it could take a bit longer. And if they wait for the SharePoint 2010 ones, the next releases might not be out until after mid-2010….

November 9th, 2009

Windows Server 2008 R2 finally gets its day in the sun

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:30 am

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy, Exchange Server, Management tools, PDC 2009, Security, System Center, Utility/cloud computing, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows server

Tags: Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Corp., WS2008R2, Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, E-mail Servers, Groupware

Microsoft officials highlighted the company’s wave of enterprise server products during the kick-off keynotes at the company’s TechEd Europe conference on November 9.

While the majority of the Microsoft’s marketing and advertising muscle has been behind Windows 7 for the past couple of months, this week, the focus is on the server side of house. Windows Server 2008 R2 (WS2008R2) — the server complement to Windows 7 has a lot of unsung features that could be of interest to IT pros, if only they knew about them, company officials said.

Microsoft officials have been touting the same handful of new WS2008R2 features as being key to IT pros, such as Hyper-V live migration; and better branch caching support and VPN-less networking (BranchCache and  Direct Access) when Windows 7 is used in conjunction with WS2008R2. But there are more than 100 features that are part of the WS2008R2 release. I asked Microsoft recently for a list of what it considered the top ten unsung features in the product. I compiled the list in the form of a slideshow.

Check out the slideshow: Ten unsung Windows Server 2008 R2 Features

As Microsoft officials have said for the past month, customers can begin to take delivery of Exchange Server 2010 starting today. (Microsoft released Exchange 2010 to manufacturing in October.) Microsoft also announced on November 9 that it has released to customers Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server. That on-premise offering will be complemented by a new, Microsoft-hosted Forefront service that will protect on-premise inboxes from spam and malware.

Exchange Server 2010 is a 64-bit-only release. The product includes new, integrated e-mail archive functionality; the ability to see text previews of voice mail; a new “Conversation View” feature; customizable call-routing menus; and a “MailTips” feature designed to help stamp out e-mail “faux pas.” It also includes a newly renamed version of Outlook Web Access (now known as Outlook Web App) that works with a variety of browsers

Microsoft originally was on tap to unveil Office Mobile 2010 at this week’s TechEd show in Berlin but took that topic off its agenda late last week. (I’m betting Office Mobile 2010 will get its day in the sun at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, which starts on November 16.)

Microsoft officials emphasized during the TechEd Europe keynotes and Q&A that customers shouldn’t wait to deploy Windows 7, WS2008R2, Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft’s other new wares. Microsoft has been going public with names of corporations that already have begun deploying these products to reinforce this message.

IT pros: Are there any Windows Server 2008 R2 and/or Exchange Server 2010 features you’re especially interested in?  Any features that didn’t make it into the final versions of these products that you’re hoping will be incorporated in the next round?

Update: Directions on Microsoft’s Rob Helm tweeted today that Exchange Online users won’t get Exchange Server 2010 functionality “for at least a couple of months.” I asked Microsoft for clarification and received a confirmation:

“Exchange Online is updated quarterly with new features and capabilities. With the launch of Exchange 2010 next week, we will begin the process of updating Exchange Online. We expect those to be available to Microsoft Online Services customers next year, and customers will determine when their users are upgraded to the new capabilities, without the traditional investment of time and energy required for an on-premises upgrade.”

November 6th, 2009

Microsoft 'Geneva' identity wares approach the finish line

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:35 pm

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Code names, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Oslo, PDC 2009, Security, Utility/cloud computing, Windows server

Tags: Geneva, Microsoft Corp., Research & Development, .Net, Microsoft Windows, Application Servers, Development Tools, Middleware, Business Operations, Software Development

Microsoft is making available for download the near-final Release Candidate (RC) test build of its “Geneva” framework, the technology officially known as Windows Identity Foundation.

(For all you Microsoft codename trackers out there, “Geneva” is the next version of Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). The programming framework supporting the next version of ADFS originally was codenamed “Zermatt,” then, later, also took on the “Geneva” codename. Microsoft’s Windows Cardspace is the third component of what Microsoft calls “Geneva.”)

On November 6, Microsoft released the RC bits of the framework, which are designed to provide developers with a new programming model and software development kit for creating identity-aware .Net applications. According to a blog post on the Forefront Team Blog, Windows Identity Foundation “provides developers pre-built .NET security logic for building claims-aware applications, enhancing either ASP.NET or WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) applications.

Geneva and the Geneva framework also are related to Microsoft’s Azure environment, as the next version of ADFS is part of the Azure Services layer in Microsoft’s cloud. (Microsoft’s current Azure diagrams don’t show ADFS as part of Azure, but I hear any new ones we see at the Professional Developers Conference in mid-November will include it.) The goal of Geneva is to provide developers and users with a single, secure sign-in capability across both cloud-based and on-premise applications.

In other PDC-related news, Microsoft is planning to distribute a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of its Oslo modeling platform. This will be the first CTP that team has provided since May and it will require Visual Studio 2010 and .Net 4 Beta 2 to work. It’s due out on November 17. (Thanks to MVP Doug Finke for unearthing the Oslo link.)

November 4th, 2009

Microsoft does a 180 on Exchange 2007 support (in a good way)

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:33 pm

Categories: App Compatibility, Corporate strategy, Exchange Server, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows server

Tags: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Windows, Servers, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, Mary Jo Foley

After notifying customers and partners that Exchange Server 2007 wouldn’t be able to run on Windows Server 2008 R2, the latest version of WIndows Server, the Exchange team has reversed its decision.

In a posting on the Exchange Team Blog, Microsoft officials said they’d heard the negative feedback loud and clear. Customers didn’t want to be forced to move to Exchange 2010 before they were ready, just so as to be able to run a version of Exchange on Windows Server 2008 R2.

To fix the problem, Microsoft is prepping an update that will be out some time next year. From a November 4 blog posting by Kevin Allison, General Manager of Exchange Customer Experience:

“In the coming calendar year we will issue an update for Exchange 2007 enabling full support of Windows Server 2008 R2. We heard from many customers that this was important for streamlining their operations and reducing administrative challenges, so we have changed course and will add R2 support. We are still working through the specifics and will let you know once we have more to share on the timing of this update.”

One Exchange 2010 caveat that seemingly hasn’t changed: Users who want to run Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 together must upgrade to Exchange 2007 Service Pack (SP) 2.

Microsoft is slated to provide customers with Exchange 2010 final bits starting the week of November 9. Microsoft released to manufacturing Exchange 2010 in early October.