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Microsoft is releasing this April its latest versions of its
enterprise class applications with enhanced security features as
among its main talking points.
These applications are Microsoft Windows Server
2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008.
The vendor firm recently gave the public a
preview of the new versions of these computer network programs when
it staged Microsoft TechAccess 2008 at the Shangri-La Manila Hotel
in Makati City.
During the exhibit, Microsoft Philippines
executives engaged reporters in a roundtable discussion and
expressed confidence the software giant would still do well
financially in spite fears of a possible recession in the United
States.
Jojo Ayson, senior product manager, Microsoft
Philippines, based his confidence on projections by the IT industry
market research firm IDC Corp. that the country’s server
market—on which the previewed Microsoft applications run—would
grow by 10 percent this year.
But Ayson admitted that financial setbacks by
Philippine companies would also affect the company’s bottomline.
He was quick to add their new enterprise class applications would
generate savings in network maintenance costs, a competitive
advantage for any company in any economic downturn.
Dominic Eala, Windows Server product manager,
who was also present at the discussion, told reporters that NAP or
Network Access Protection capabilities were among the enhancements
to Microsoft’s latest server operating system. NAP would give
added protection from security threats that have been brought about
by the increased use of mobile devices to access computer networks,
according to Eala.
He added that the Microsoft Windows Server 2008
also had virtualization capabilities. Thus, it could administer
computers linked to its network that run on various platforms,
including UNIX and Linux.
He further said network administrators had the
option to enable or disable the Windows Server 2008 graphical user
interface. He explained that this was in deference to their
observations that servers seldom need such as interface as they have
been configured to only run a few specific commands, and therefore
only need to be in command line mode.
On the other hand, Liezel Milan, Microsoft
Sequel Server product manager, told reporters that the latest
version of their relational database system application would enable
network administrators to encrypt all their data with merely one
click. Thus, it would offer both greater security and ease of use.
While, Tim Vergel de Dios, Microsoft Virtual
Studio product manager, told reporters that the latest version of
the software’s developer tool would include enhanced collaboration
features. This would enable software architects, programmers,
testers, and database administrators to seamlessly collaborate on a
project, Vergel de Dios said.
During the roundtable discussion, Ayson said
Microsoft Philippines generates the bulk of its marketing revenues
from sales and servicing of enterprise computing applications. He
did not elaborate.
-- Ike Suarez
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