Microsoft?s Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer today showcased the next generation of infrastructure and application platform products, including Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
Windows Server 2008 marks Microsoft's first major challenge against VMware, the leader in virtualization, by building the technology into its core operating system.
Virtualization is one of the fastest-growing segments of the software industry because it disrupts the traditional business model that marries one machine to one piece of software like an operating system.
Beta testers have declared themselves satisfied with the improvements, especially in terms of security (Windows Server 2008 helps prevent unauthorized connections to the user?s networks, servers, data and user accounts) and high performance.
Today Microsoft disclosed a new world-record performance results on TPC-E and SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application 3-tier benchmarks running on four-socket blade servers. Microsoft also published performance benchmarks for several customer scenarios, including leading results on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Siemens Teamcenter and Camstar Manufacturing Execution Systems.
Microsoft also announced that Microsoft Windows Server 2008 with .NET Framework 3.5 delivers faster throughput than IBM WebSphere 6.1 on Red Hat Linux as shown through two new benchmark tests measuring scalability and performance in mission-critical enterprise scenarios. The sample application shows 117 percent better throughput of Windows Server using the IBM-designed Trade 6.1 benchmark; and Sun Microsystems? WSTest Web services benchmark demonstrates 94 percent better throughput on Windows Server when processing Web Service requests. More information on the results is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/HHHlaunch/docs/BenchmarkFS.doc.
For the time being, Microsoft will ship Windows Server 2008 with a beta version of its "Hyper-V" technology, which adds an extra layer of software that sits between the operating system and hardware, but it expects to add the full feature to the software within six months. Visual Studio 2008 is also available today. The feature-complete, February community technology preview of SQL Server 2008 is also available, with general availability expected in the third quarter of 2008.
Windows Server 2008, the successor to Windows Server 2003, will also lead a broad shift to a more advanced 64-bit computer architecture. Microsoft will offer the new operating system in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.