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Redmond, Wash — Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released to manufacturing on Monday, Feb 04, and will start being available to customers in March, starting with Microsoft Volume Licensing customers.

Windows Server 2008 was also released to manufacturing today and will be available for purchase to new customers on March 1. Microsoft Volume Licensing customers with active Microsoft Software Assurance coverage or an Enterprise Agreement will be able to download the server software toward the end of February as part of the joint Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 “Heroes Happen Here” launch event.

Windows Vista SP1 includes quality improvements that help enhance reliability, security and performance. Windows Server 2008 builds on the success and strengths of past server solutions and helps give organizations a solid foundation for their information technology (IT) infrastructure. Organizations using Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 together can see a number of improvements for IT professionals, including benefits in security and manageability, overall system performance, and streamlined planning and deployment.

More at Microsoft, WindowsVistaBlog.

Brussels — On Thursday, Dec 20, the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), a non-profit organization created by the Software Freedom Law Center, signed an agreement with Microsoft to receive the protocol documentation needed to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows workgroup server products and to make them available to Free Software projects such as Samba.

Microsoft was required to make this information available to competitors as part of the European Commission March 24th 2004 Decision in the antitrust lawsuit, after losing their appeal against that decision on September 17th 2007.

After paying Microsoft a one-time sum of 10,000 Euros, the PFIF will make available to the Samba Team under non-disclosure terms the documentation needed for implementation of all of the workgroup server protocols covered by the EU decision.

Although the documentation itself will be held in confidence by the PFIF and Samba Team engineers, the agreement allows the publication of the source code of the implementation of these protocols without any further restrictions. This is fully compatible with versions two and three of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Samba is published under the GNU GPL which is the most widely used of all Free Software licenses. In addition it allows discussion of the protocol information amongst implementers which will aid technical cooperation between engineers.

Under the agreement, Microsoft is required to make available and keep current a list of patent numbers it believes are related to the Microsoft implementation of the workgroup server protocols, without granting an implicit patent license to any Free Software implementation.

No per-copy royalties are required from the PFIF, Samba developers, third party vendors or users and no acknowledgement of any patent infringement by Free Software implementations is expressed or implied in the agreement. More at Samba.

REDMOND, Wash — Dec 13, `07 — Microsoft this morning delivered a holiday surprise for customers and partners, unveiling a public beta for its hypervisor-based server virtualization technology called Hyper-V, a feature with some versions of Windows Server 2008.

Customers and partners today can download Windows Server 2008 RC1 Enterprise with the beta version of Hyper-V to evaluate the new technology, test applications and plan future consolidation, business continuity and high-availability projects. The beta was previously expected to be ready in the first quarter of 2008 with the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Server 2008. The beta is available for download at Microsoft.com/ws08eval.

Windows Server 2008 Moves Closer to Launch
The release of the Hyper-V beta marks another significant milestone for Windows Server 2008 as it approaches final release by the “Heroes Happen Here” launch in Los Angeles on Feb. 27, 2008. The launch, featuring Windows Server 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, will mark the largest enterprise launch for the Redmond, Wash.-based company and is just one of many events planned for a worldwide rollout. So far, almost 2 million customers around the world have obtained Windows Server 2008 evaluation code.

More at Microsoft.

Microsoft delivers next milestone for highly anticipated Windows Server 2008, makes RC1 (release candidate one) ready for testing; industry readies for worldwide launch wave with “Heroes Happen Here” launch theme.

REDMOND, Wash — Dec 5, 2007 — Reaching a major milestone in development, Microsoft today made available the Windows Server 2008 release candidate one (RC1) for customers to download and evaluate.

In addition, Microsoft committed more than $150 million (U.S.) worldwide for outreach and demand generation to IT professionals and developers, and disclosed additional details and partner programs in preparation for the “Heroes Happen Here” launch events, beginning on Feb. 27, 2008, in Los Angeles.

Windows Server 2008 RC1
Windows Server 2008, which is scheduled to release to manufacturing (RTM) by the Feb. 27 launch event, reached the RC1 milestone today and is available to customers for download at Microsoft.com/ws08eval.

With RC1, Microsoft is enhancing Group Policy with Group Policy Preferences, formerly known as PolicyMaker Standard Edition and Policy Share Manager. As the code approaches final signoff, RC1 is one of the last opportunities for customers and partners to evaluate it and provide feedback. So far, more than 1.8 million customers have obtained Windows Server 2008 evaluation code.

Industry Partners Kick Off Windows Server 2008 Launch Wave
As the industry gears up for the new enterprise and developer platform, thousands of industry partners have been working with Microsoft on product testing and evaluation, and are currently developing new applications, device drivers, services and solutions.

Ten partners in particular — Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Citrix Systems, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Intel, Quest Software, SAP AG and Unisys — have already invested significant time and resources to be platinum sponsors of the upcoming launch, demonstrating their strong support for and excitement about Microsoft’s next-generation products.

To date more than 140,000 IT professionals and developers have been trained on Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, and 3,100 certifications have been granted on Windows Server 2008. More at Microsoft.

Nov 23, ‘07 — Digitimes is reporting on Microsoft’s November 21 launch of  Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 in Taiwan and allowing users to download an English-language version for free trial use over 180 days, citing Microsoft Taiwan.

Digitimes further writes, “On November 14 Microsoft introduced CE 6.0 R2 at the Embedded Technology 2007 trade show held in Yokohama, Japan, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

CE 6.0 R2 features new operating system components which can help hardware developers shorten time to market for devices and make such devices more easy to connect to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, according to Microsoft.” More at Digitimes, Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2.

Santa Clara, CA–Oct 31, ‘07–Underscoring strong momentum and industry support, Intel Corporation today unveiled Dual-Core Intel Itanium Processor 9100 series processors. Built for managing high-end applications and armed with advanced features that improve reliability and reduce power consumption, the 9100 series accentuates the ongoing shift from proprietary RISC products to the choice offered by Itanium-based servers. The 9100 series represents the sixth generation of Itanium chips, with three future generations under development.

The Itanium platform’s mission-critical support is strengthened by a new feature called Core Level Lock-Step that improves the data integrity and reliability of applications by eliminating undetected errors in the core. Core Level Lock-Step joins existing Socket Level Lock-Step technology to deliver greater reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) by guaranteeing that calculation results are consistent among the cores and sockets.

Another new feature, Demand Based Switching (DBS), reduces server power consumption during low utilization periods, which can result in energy cost savings.

The 9100 series features clock speed of up to 1.66 GHz and 667 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) within a 104W power envelope. A three-load bus – two processors and a chipset on the same bus - provides increased bandwidth for enterprise and high-performance computing tasks.

“The Itanium ecosystem continues to grow as customers choose industry standard platforms supported by leading system OEMs that provide them with the broadest choice of applications.” said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager, Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group.

“Microsoft continues to be a committed supporter of the Itanium architecture, and with the 9100 series our enterprise customers can run even more highly scalable and reliable databases and business applications,” said Bill Laing, general manager, Windows Server Division at Microsoft. “Supporting the Demand-Based Switching feature on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems will help businesses better manage power consumption and improve the efficiency of their enterprise operations.”

Pricing and availability

Six Intel dual-core and a single-core Itanium 9100 series processors are shipping today, with prices ranging from $696 to $3,692 depending on order volume, features and performance. Parts supporting Core level Lock-Step will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2008. More at Intel