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Microsoft beefs up new products with virtualization and BI
By Faiz Askari
Microsoft recently released its latest offerings namely, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. These products are the result of a four-year long internal directive to offer various solutions to the enterprise, a few key factors revolving around security and trust, Virtualization, Web 2.0 and Business Intelligence. Surprisingly, the company is looking at tier-2 and tier-3 cities to deliver growth for its products. To address this it will be conducting a “free look” session in over 80 cities.
Through its latest releases, the company plans to address the key issues that are important for an organization to deliver business continuity with improved security, enable innovation while controlling costs and empower people to make better decisions with data.
"Microsoft in the country has engaged more than 200 partners including ISVs, System Integrators and resellers, who will rollout products and programs to support the new platform. Additionally, in April, Microsoft will also be offering live online learning sessions to help Developers and IT Professionals across the country get skilled on these products,” says Pallavi Kathuria, Director - Server Business, Microsoft. 
With these products, the company has announced its seriousness into incorporating Virtualization and Business Intelligence capabilities into its products, going one step further in delivering more functionality to its existing capabilities.
S Somasegar, Senior Vice President, Microsoft, added, “This offering brings an opportunity for system integrators and solution providers to develop effective and customized applications for customers. Organizations currently spend more than 70 percent of their IT budgets and resources on maintaining existing infrastructure – this is clearly less than optimal and a huge drain on resources.”
In order to leverage the expertise of channel community, Microsoft has worked with more than 1,000 global partners to help plan, build, test, and deploy these leading-edge solutions by providing early access to code, training and testing, and certification support. At a global level, hundreds of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have demonstrated their support with the development of a wide variety of business applications for industries including retail, accounting, commerce, engineering, financial services, health care, supply chain, and more. In India, the company has so far educated and trained 200 partners.
The three products enable Dynamic IT - a platform for core IT infrastructure and application infrastructure technologies that can easily adapt to changing business conditions.
Doug Hauger, Chief Operating Office, Microsoft added, "To begin realizing the benefits of Dynamic IT, customers can deploy the new products to power next generation web applications, enable better business decisions and return savings to the business by using technologies, such as virtualization. Windows Server 2008, including a beta version of the Hyper-V virtualization technology, and Visual Studio 2008 are available today. A feature-complete, Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2008 is also now available with general availability expected in the third quarter of 2008."
While emphasizing on interoperability, Somasegar added, "The Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 are key products in the company's strategy to promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry."
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