Windows Azure

Although much of Microsoft's focus at its partner conference will be on the cloud, many of its product announcements have to do with on-premise software such as Windows and Windows Server.

On Monday, the first full day of its annual Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft is scheduled to announce, among other things, the beta of Service Pack 1 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The update for Windows 7 is quite minor and consists mostly of previous bug fixes and other tweaks. On the server side, though, the service pack will add some new features around virtualization. … Read more

Microsoft is announcing on Monday that it plans to let businesses and partners run Windows Azure in their own data centers by purchasing a new server appliance.

The software company had previously hinted that customers might someday be able to host their own instances of the cloud-based operating system, but had yet to commit to that option.

The Windows Azure Platform Appliance will be made up of hundreds of servers, along with networking gear and other components in a container-size package. HP, Dell, and Fujitsu will be among the first to sell the appliances, although Redmond is offering few details, … Read more

Although he's presided over the expansion of Microsoft's server business, Bob Muglia is ready to help companies move away from that same server software.

Well, he is at least as long as those businesses are moving to the Microsoft cloud-based services that are replicating the software that, at one point, ran only in a company's own data center.

In an interview, the president of Microsoft's server and tools business talked about the shifts to the cloud, Google's role in the enterprise and the future of Microsoft's server products, including the next version of Windows Server, which he said will be a major update.

Here's an edited transcript of our conversation.

You mentioned that Microsoft is pretty much doing everything for the cloud first. Does that mean that over time on-premises customers are actually going to be getting technology that's somewhat older, for better and for worse? Muglia: Well, I think the way to look at it is that we're able to use the cloud to do a lot more of our early validation than we've ever been able to do before. You know, you see us with labs, you know, Live Labs and things like that, being able to take ideas and put them up in the cloud. More and more what you'll see is the beginning of our beta processes will be run for new things up in the cloud, because our ability to get feedback from customers is so much more rapid if customers don't have to deploy the infrastructure themselves. So, there's a set of things that we can do, which will help to reduce our cycle time, and bringing new features to market.

I mean, in general our products run on two- to three-year cycles, and it very often takes customers at least that long to deploy them. I actually think the cloud will expedite customers' ability to get our software and our innovations, even if they run it themselves, because it will shorten our cycle for delivery, and also I think customers as they see these things available in the cloud will have a better understanding of the advantages they can get if they deploy it themselves. So, I actually don't think it slows down things at all for our customers that choose on-premises. … Read more

Although Microsoft won't say when it will arrive, the next version of Windows Server won't be another minor release.

In an interview on Monday, server and tools unit president Bob Muglia said Microsoft is sticking to a schedule set out several years ago in which the server and tools unit puts out alternating minor and major releases every two years or so. The most recent update, the server version of Windows 7, was a minor update--Windows Server 2008 R2--completed last year.

"There's no question you're due for a major release of Windows Server," Muglia … Read more

Microsoft said Monday it expects to have a public beta by July for the first service pack update to Windows 7.

The announcement came at the start of Microsoft's TechEd conference, being held this week in New Orleans.

Although the update is relatively minor, the release of the first service pack of an operating system has historically been a symbolic indication to businesses that the software is ready for mass consumption. In recent years, though, Microsoft has issued many of the updates that are part of a service pack ahead of that release and the company has encouraged businesses … Read more

With a high-power crowd in the audience, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer went hard-core with his sales pitch on the role cloud computing will have for businesses in the coming years.

Speaking to about 125 chief executives and other leaders, Ballmer said that truly big shifts in technology actually don't happen all that often.

"The really big ones you have to totally jump on," Ballmer said during a speech at the company's annual CEO Summit, which runs through Thursday at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash. "We are, right now, all of us in the midst of … Read more

Microsoft on Monday launched an expanded push into technical computing that it says is needed to solve ever more complex scientific challenges.

"Recent world events clearly demonstrated our inability to process vast amounts of information and variables that would have helped to more accurately predict the behavior of global financial markets or the occurrence and impact of a volcano eruption in Iceland," Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft's Server and Tools unit, said in a statement.

The software maker said a new team will focus on a number of key technical computing challenges such as shifting high-end computing … Read more

Microsoft is testing a new "Fix it Center"--an online and PC-based tool for helping users solve their Windows technical problems.

While a fair amount of diagnostics are built into Windows 7, the free Fix it Center aims to expand on these and also bring similar capabilities to Windows XP and Windows Vista.

The service, which went into beta on Thursday, consists of both a Windows download and an online service.

"Fix it Center finds and fixes many common PC and device problems automatically," Microsoft said on its Web site. "It also helps prevent new … Read more

It happens every couple of years. Microsoft's newly installed head of small-business efforts goes on the road to talk about how the company sees vast potential in the huge numbers of underserved firms that all want the capabilities of big business software without the cost or complexity. The new executive assures me that Microsoft gets it and promises Redmond is rededicating itself to the market.

This time around, the executive was Birger Steen, a Norwegian oil trader who ran Microsoft's Russian subsidiary before moving to Redmond last year to take over the small and midsize business sales effort. … Read more