Microsoft on Thursday officially posted the fourth service pack for Windows 2000. SP4 comes about 11 months after Service Pack 3 and, like SP3, is a recommended update. The fix list includes more than 650 issues with an emphasis on security, application and hardware compatibility, Windows 2000 setup and operating system reliability. Service packs are collections of hotfixes that have been tested far more thoroughly than hotfixes, which are generally rushed out to fix a security or stability crisis. Microsoft generally encourages customers to use service packs over hotfixes when possible.
Exchange 2003 to RTM Monday
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Microsoft will release Exchange Server 2003 to manufacturing on Monday, company officials said Thursday. The company plans to hold prices steady from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 and will include more flexible licensing options for the messaging server, as well.
"Availability for volume licensing customers will be later this summer. General availability for retail is going to be later this year," said Missy Stern, an Exchange product manager.
Release to manufacturing means the code is finished and ready to be pressed into CDs or posted for download. For Exchange, the milestone means the end of a three-year development cycle that saw the inclusion of part of the functionality of Mobile Information Server and an interruption for the development team to get security training and review the code under the Trustworthy Computing initiative.
Recently, Microsoft changed the name of its NAS software for the third time in two years to reflect the inclusion of its Windows Server 2003 operating system kernel. Predictably, the product, now called Storage Server, has spawned a new thread of trade press stories and generalized industry buzz regarding the less-than-bright prospects of Network Appliance.
While I am hesitant to count out NetApp as one of the leaders of the $5-plus billion NAS market, especially at the enterprise level, I have to marvel at the obvious "marketecture" surrounding the story.
Microsoft updates SQL Server BI tool
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Microsoft on Wednesday released an updated version of a tool to help system integrators and other Microsoft partners build business intelligence applications atop SQL Server. The 1.2 release of the SQL Server Business Intelligence Accelerator extends support down to the Standard Edition of SQL Server 2000, adds support for XML data imports and supports Office 2003, which has not yet been released.
At its core, the tool allows an architect to map out a business intelligence solution on an Excel worksheet, including data sources and targets. The tool then uses the Excel worksheet to set up and trigger services from SQL Server, including Data Transformation Services and Analysis Services, to build the BI application. The original version came out in May 2002 and supported only the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2000.
Microsoft is giving $1.7 million in cash grants to universities worldwide for projects with Windows CE .Net and Windows XP Embedded, the company said Tuesday. The money is intended to fund new research projects and curriculum development involving Microsoft's software for embedded use and will go to 77 universities and colleges that proposed myriad projects, said Karen Carter, group product manager in Microsoft's embedded devices group, in Redmond, Wash.
"We are really looking to promote awareness of our operating system and ensure that schools are teaching the wide array of embedded technologies available," Carter said. The proposed projects include robotics and devices that can help disabled people.
Microsoft's path to expand the Windows empire is leading directly to search king Google. The software company this month quietly launched a new search program called MSNBot, which scours the Web to build an index of HTML links and documents. The homegrown system--which performs robot functions previously left to Inktomi and other partners--may pose a significant threat to Google if Microsoft fulfills its promise to make the program a cornerstone of its overall PC and services strategies.
MSNBot is believed to be the first step in a multiyear plan to build new search technology that bridges Microsoft's home and business customers. Company executives hope the program will eventually prove to be the elusive technology that binds its various Web sites, applications and, of course, the dominant Windows operating system.
Microsoft has launched a new Web site traffic-analysis service for customers of its bCentral Web hosting and e-commerce services. FastCounter Pro is designed to let small businesses monitor traffic patterns to help them improve the design and marketing of their Web sites and to increase overall traffic. The Redmond, Wash., company plans to announce the service later this week.
The service is targeted at companies that don't have the time or expertise to analyze their own Web logs, Microsoft said. It's the latest online service out of Microsoft bCentral, which, in addition to offering Web hosting, provides auction listings, file sharing and online calendar services to about 80,000 customers.
Microsoft has won a six-year contract worth more than $470 million to provide software to the U.S. Army, the biggest order ever for the company's programs. The deal covers 494,000 desktop computers, Microsoft spokesman Keith Hodson said. The Army will buy the software from a Microsoft reseller, Softmart, based in Downingtown, Pa. Hodson declined to say how the companies will divide the revenue.
The Defense Department has questioned the security of Microsoft and rival products in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It looks like whatever that problem was, it wasn't great enough to stop the sale, or it was fixed," Enderle said. "The Army wouldn't buy this stuff if it still had exposures they couldn't mitigate."
In a briefing this week with Microsoft, I was told that the first service pack for Windows Server 2003--due in December--will include a roles-based Security Configuration Wizard that will provide administrators with a definitive list of the services required for each Windows 2003-based server. The wizard will be based on an XML database that includes information about Windows 2003, Exchange, SQL Server, and other Microsoft products. When you configure the server to perform certain roles, the wizard can shut off any unnecessary services, taking the guess work out of what used to be a very complicated process. Additionally, the company tells me the tool can be used to shut down any ports not required by the assigned server roles, further increasing the integrity of the system.
During his keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2003 in San Francisco earlier this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the excitable audience that the company's new PowerMac G5 systems--due in August--would not just match but surpass the performance of similarly equipped high-end Pentium 4 and XEON-based PCs from companies such as Dell. "We are delivering today the world's fastest personal computer," Jobs said of the G5 during the keynote, though the systems won't ship for two months. Apple has made similar performance claims over the years, but it has always relied on rather spurious evidence, such as hand-picked benchmarks that highlighted specific strengths of the PowerPC platform. However, this time, Jobs touted a number of so-called industry standard benchmarks from Veritest which reputedly backed up Apple's claims. Has the Mac really surpassed the PC, after years of lagging behind?
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