Maestro Technologies - Intelligent management software for the construction industry.

What is your Microsoft solution?

Microsoft has been criticized many times over the last few years. Some of the criticisms were related to the absence of concrete innovations from the giant Microsoft with Google and Apple moving ahead in this area. The difficulties encountered with the introduction of Vista and Apple’s ads only exacerbated the situation. This said, Microsoft products continue to be the standard for most SMEs for server and workstation operating systems, and in terms of office tools (Excel, Word and others), whose adoption remain very high. Rather than having the best solution in all categories, Microsoft provides unequalled integration in its business solutions.

As Microsoft partners who are always interested in following the various trends in the technology market, Maestro representatives recently participated in a worldwide conference of Microsoft partners held in Houston. Instead of trying to provide an overview of the situation (we can easily get lost in the maze of solutions proposed by Microsoft), below is some of the information we picked up at this conference.

Software + Services - Microsoft’s answer to the SaaS model

In recent years, new offerings in IT markets have been moving away from the traditional model of selling software user licenses, which was a model that Microsoft had always defended. Software has become a service. Applications are decentralized and no longer run on user’s servers. Instead they access functions hosted by suppliers using a browser. We no longer buy licenses; now we pay monthly user fees. But these new models have limitations. Integration with other applications is complicated, performance and interfaces are sometimes questioned and service is unstable. Aware that the SaaS model cannot apply to everything, Microsoft also conducts research to find solutions that are at times local and at other times offered in the form of services, dependent on the situations and functions provided. Microsoft distinguishes itself by providing products that let their partners offer two methods. Software and Services, the best of both worlds, depending on the circumstances.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 - A Dazzling Success

According to the information gathered, SharePoint will be Microsoft’s strongest growing product ever with revenues already reaching $1 billion. It is difficult to describe SharePoint in a few words because the product has many possibilities, along with the corresponding potential confusion if the implementation is not properly planned and carried out.

Below is an overview of the application’s possibilities:

• Structured document management: Control over document access, retention, centralized filing, version management, Web functions.
• Collaboration: Facilitated information sharing.
• Searching for information and documents and the ability to integrate with other applications.
• Process management using standard or custom forms.
• Business intelligence and portal.

Unified communications (software-based telephone system).

Microsoft’s idea is to integrate functions traditionally provided by telephone systems (calls, voice mail, conference calls) and those that we generally associate with the PC (document, spreadsheet, e-mail, instant messaging and calendar) into one software solution. The result is really quite powerful. Imagine being able to access and control all of the functions mentioned above in an advanced version of Outlook. Add to this the ability to share this information through SharePoint functions and you will have an idea of the benefits provided by integrating the various Microsoft solutions.

The thinking at Microsoft is therefore to replace traditional telephone systems with software solutions. All of the technology necessary to do this is not yet available on the market (new announcements are planned for early 2009), but those among you who want to migrate to IP telephony would do well to conduct a bit of research before you invest in hardware that could quickly be outdated.

Virtualization - Hyper-V for hyper-virtualization - Microsoft’s answer

Virtualization technology makes it possible to maximize investments in servers by adding multiple functions on virtual machines on a given physical machine. This makes it possible to install various software products requiring different environments (operating systems) on a single server. The Maestro quality control team is already using this technology to simulate the different environments of our customers and test our applications in these contexts without having to increase the number of servers in our offices.

This virtualization product is actually a direct competitor of VMware, which has already been on the market for a very long time. This is another area where Microsoft did not come up with the original solution, but seems interested in making up for lost time.

Windows Essential Business Server

Equipped with Windows Server 2008 technology, Windows Essential Business Server combines management and messaging software, as well as security functions, in an integrated server solution that is preconfigured to meet the specific requirements of SMBs.

We have provided you with an overview of Microsoft’s latest technological developments. Obviously, you would not implement all of these solutions in your company, but we wanted to give you a good idea of the technical advances available for companies of the future. It is up to you to determine whether these new products are suitable for your company.