Microsoft Platform Solutions Community

New Efficiency Launch Event

If you missed the live event, tune in here to see Steve Ballmer's keynote and find out where cost savings, productivity, and innovation come together.

The Business Case for Windows 7

The launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system promises to be one of the biggest technology debuts of the year. Attend this archived virtual event to gain exclusive, complimentary access to the premier one-stop Windows 7 information destination, packed with resources to guide you in your decision-making process.

Windows 7 Enterprise Deployment

InformationWeek sat down with Steve Ballmer to talk about how IT departments can manage IT resources with a close eye on costs, while also investing in new systems and software to support business growth.
By John Foley, InformationWeek

Windows 7 Survival Guide: From 32- to 64-Bit

Your old hardware isn't doomed. Here's how to migrate 32-bit printers and scanners onto your 64-bit version of the Windows 7 operating system.

Windows 7 90-Day Trial

Designed specifically for IT Professionals, the trial will allow you to test your software and hardware on a final version of the product and become familiar with the key improvements over previous versions of Windows. Try it now!

Accelerate IT and Business Success with a Windows Optimized Desktop

With mounting pressures on IT departments to become more cost-efficient, productive, and secure, the path to IT success lies in the ability to achieve a Windows optimized desktop infrastructure.

Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) - Productivity, manageability and reduced total cost of ownership for enterprise desktops

• MDOP ROI
• Download, evaluate and deploy MDOP

Migrating Windows XP to Windows 7

Learn how the User State Migration Tool in the Automated Installation Toolkit has everything you need to get the migration going and smoothly deploy Windows 7.

Windows 7 Application Compatibility

A roundtable discussion about the most common challenges around application compatibility when coming from a legacy operating system

Windows 7 Power Management

The power management technologies in Windows 7 provide platform and processor efficiencies that reduce power consumption and can help lower energy costs.

What's New in Windows 7 for IT Pros

This free class provides you with an overview of the new and enhanced deployment, security, manageability, and performance features in Windows 7.

MDOP Smoothes Path for Windows 7 Deployment

The multi-tentacled toolkit contains virtualization technologies and management tools.
By Alexander Wolfe, InformationWeek

Application Virtualization: Cost Reduction Study

This study documents the cost savings on a per PC basis annually, for a typical company, based on 6 depth cost studies, 45 case studies, TCO analysis, and analyst research.

Many Problems Among Virtualization's Gains

Asked to cite the most glaring problem of virtualization, 59% of the respondents indicate they lack experience to manage the technology appropriately.
By W. David Gardner, InformationWeek

Cost Savings with Microsoft Virtualization

See why the economic crisis is leading many businesses to chose Microsoft’s virtualization solution over the competition.

Virtualization Capability Overview

Implementation of Microsoft Virtualization Solutions can dramatically improve the capability of an organization to quickly respond to business demands without extensive additional capital investment.

IT Manager Community Hub

• Simple to Save

• Virtualization Self Assessment Kit

Tour the Capability - Virtualization

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ThriveLive! Virtualization

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Windows Server 2008 R2, Remote Desktop, VDI and Virtualization

The range of choices an IT pro has for delivering an application to users desktops can be bewildering. Find out what's right for you.

System Center Solutions

System Center integrated and automated solutions help IT pros manage the physical and virtual IT environments across data centers, client computers, and devices so IT organizations can be more productive service providers to their businesses.

• System Center Team Blog

Business Intelligence Gets Smart

What top companies are doing right with their BI initiatives and what you can learn from them. By Doug Henschen, Intelligent Enterprise

In A Down Economy, Companies Turn To Real-Time Analytics To Track Demand

Manufacturers and retailers lead the way in using up-to-the-minute point-of-sale data to avoid stock-outs and overproduction. By Doug Henschen, InformationWeek

Download SQL Server 2008 Trial Software Evaluation Edition

This comprehensive data platform is secure, reliable, and scalable for your mission critical applications and provides rich services for any data type.

Realize Impressive Savings By Consolidating on SQL Server 2008

Learn more about this enterprise class, low-cost, feature-rich and easy-to-use data platform

BI Platform Solution Blueprint

The Blueprint Poster by Advaiya gives IT managers a comprehensive view of how Business Intelligence & Search technologies work within their IT environment.

BI Capability Overview

In a platform-aligned environment, organizations can easily and inexpensively poll existing data sources and live business processes to get the most recent and accurate picture of the environment.

BI — IT Manager Community Hub

Find out how Microsoft BI can help you in IT, Finance, Operations, and Sales

Resources on Business & IT Value

Microsoft BI offers a complete, fully integrated set of BI technologies that can help reduce the complexity of organizing and distributing information, enable better business decisions, and improve your bottom line.

Tour the Capability - BI

Improving business insight and performance with business intelligence.
Webcast | Podcast | Chat

State Of SOA: An InformationWeek Analytics Report

We polled readers to assess whether service-oriented architectures have simply hit an economy-induced bump in the road or are, instead, at a significant crossroads.

SOA & BPM Capability Overview

Service-oriented architecture and business process management deliver an infrastructure that enables you to choose what you want to do and quickly implement that solution using your existing resources.

SOA & BPM Blueprint

This printable graphic poster illustrates where Service Oriented Architecture and Business Process Management technologies fit in the IT manager's environment.

Resources on Business & IT Value

Assessment and Roadmap for Service Oriented Architecture

SOA & BPM — IT Manager Community Hub

What are the most critical elements to improving your organization's service orientation and supporting more efficient business processes?

Real World SOA

Fuel innovation, boost agility, and harvest more value from your organization.

Tour the Capability - SOA & BPM

We discuss the technologies and practices that let an organization take advantage of the Microsoft promise of SOA and BPM to accomplish more with their existing infrastructure.
Chat | Webcast | Podcast

How Can BizTalk Server Help Customers in the Current Economy??

Increase efficiency through automation of business processes, improve time to market, extract value from existing investments, and lower your TCO.

Explore the Capabilities of BizTalk RFID

RFID technology is expected to significantly transform the way an enterprise runs its business. Check out these video case studies to learn more.

Microsoft Tests Container Approach in New Chicago Datacenter

New center will help Microsoft quickly add capacity as it ramps up its plan to offer software, such as Exchange and Office, over the Internet. By Chris Murphy, By InformationWeek

Microsoft Begins Detailing SharePoint 2010

The next version of the hot-selling collaboration and content management platform will add a host of user features as well as improved IT management capabilities. By J. Nicholas Hoover, InformationWeek

A New Approach To Collaboration & Enterprise Content Management

Oceans of unmanaged content are swamping companies. It's time to rethink ECM and collaboration to keep your head above water. By InformationWeek

Evaluate Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate Today

The latest release helps you achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that simplify your administration, protect your communications, and provide greater business mobility.

Collaboration and Enterprise Content Management Blueprint

The Blueprint Poster by Advaiya gives IT managers a comprehensive view of how ECM and Collaboration technologies work within their IT environment.

Collaboration & ECM — IT Manager Community Hub

Customer evidence for enterprise content management

Tour the Capability — Collaboration & EPM

IT Manager Webcast: Platform Solution Blueprints: Collaboration and Enterprise Content Management (Level 200)

Perfect Match? SOA Meets Unified Communications

Vendors are increasingly building UC capabilities into their VoIP and other service gateways. By InformationWeek

Achieving Cost and Resource Savings with UC

Put IT in Control

Give them options to balance and control risk. Learn more about Microsoft Unified Communications.

Windows Server 2008 R2

The new server operating system includes a number of integration points with Windows 7.
By J. Nicholas Hoover, InformationWeek

Hyper-V Live Migration: "The most significant, most visible new feature" of Windows Server R2

Live migration can be used to load-balance virtual machines across servers, saving power by shutting down a server after moving its virtual machines to an underutilized neighbor.
By Charles Babcock, InformationWeek

Download the Windows Server 2008 R2 Evaluation Now!

Check out the new features that enable organizations to increase the reliability and flexibility of their server infrastructures.

Best Practices to Reduce IT Operational Costs

Best practices are most effective in driving IT efficiency to reduce operating costs and free up human and financial IT resources to add more value to the business.

Windows Server 2008 R2 is a secure, flexible, and manageable foundation for your IT to build your business infrastructure. With Windows Server 2008 R2, you can spend less time on day-to-day tasks and more time adding value to the business.

Enterprise Solutions

Midsize Business Solutions

Small Business Solutions

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Live Migration

This whitepaper details highlights valuable new features available that help businesses maximize resources and reduce costs.

Centralized Server Virtualization Drives IT Cost Reduction

Learn how server and application growth at Microsoft has matured to a model where technologies such as virtualization power a centralized and consolidated server and application management system.

How Customers are Cutting Costs & Building Value with Microsoft Virtualization

This white paper examines how Microsoft customers are using virtualization technology to simplify their IT infrastructure, IT processes, and save money.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit v4.0

Assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 (MDT 2010)

MDT 2010 provides a common console with the comprehensive tools and guidance needed to efficiently manage deployment of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Evaluate the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 August Community Technology Preview (CTP)

CTP includes Application and Multi-server Management, which will help organizations manage database environments efficiently and gain increased visibility and control across the application lifecycle.

Planning an upgrade to SQL Server 2008

You can upgrade instances of SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008. Before running SQL Server Setup to upgrade to SQL Server 2008, review the following topics about the upgrade process.

SQL Server 2008

Learn about this comprehensive data platform that provides the scalability, availability, security, and manageability that you need for mission-critical OLTP application.

Why SQL Server May Be More Suitable for You:

A competitive review of Oracle Real Application Clusters.

Microsoft's Must-Have Software Release

Microsoft Security Essentials offers good security to all users for free, which should make the entire Windows world much less susceptible to widespread epidemics. By Dave Methvin, InformationWeek

Do Executives Take Security Seriously? Survey Says Yes.

But what if you ask the IT professionals whether executives actually back up their politically correct answer with tangible support? We did, and the results surprised us. By Andrew Conry-Murray, InformationWeek

ROI Is Not A Good Justification For Security

Getting proposals approved on business merit is often misunderstood by many IT and security practitioners who see the need for a technology, but can't convince business folks. By Mike Fratto, InformationWeek

Security Management Tips For Aspiring IT Managers

Your organization wants you to enforce a security strategy that protects the business and customers.

Create A Security Plan In 5 Steps

Start here with a framework around which to discuss and implement security technologies and policies.

Is Security Recession Proof?

The answer is: no. Attacks will increase, regulatory compliance demands will no doubt escalate, and companies will seek justification for their security budget. But these conditions were true before the recession started. InformationWeek

IT Security: We're Spending More, So Why Isn't Our Data Safer?

In the face of growing demand to target security investments based on risk management principles there's wisdom to be garnered from our peers. By InformationWeek

Security Intelligence Report

The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) provides an in-depth perspective on the changing threat landscape including software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software.

Security — IT Manager Community Hub

Check out Microsoft Security Expert Jeff Jones's blog.
Learn More

Resources on Business & IT Value

Security Compliance Management Toolkit

Tour the Capability - Security

If improving security is critical, but you believe security is tied to overwhelming administrative costs or have other security concerns, then join us for this webcast and experience security as a business enabler.
Chat | Podcast | Webcast

Platform as a Service

It's a form of cloud computing that holds considerable potential to help enterprise developers quickly write and test customer- or employee-facing Web applications, something that companies of all stripes will be under growing pressure to deliver. By Charles Babcock, InformationWeek

Setting Priorities For Next-Generation Web Apps

Rich Internet Applications are favored by technology and business decision makers for many new Web development projects. By Roger Smith, InformationWeek

Why you should download Internet Explorer 8

Learn about new features in Internet Explorer and read the technology overview for Enterprise.

Get the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0

The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. The Web PI also makes it easy to install and run the most popular free web applications for blogging, content management and more with the built-in Windows Web Application Gallery.

Next Generation Web — IT Manager Community Hub

Resources on Business & IT Value

Microsoft takes a sweeping look at all of the 1-800-FLOWERS.COM advertising to discover the impact on the company's branding and sales metrics.

Tour the Capability - Next Generation Web

This webcast showcases some of the most important Next Web capabilities critical to you as an IT Manager within your organization.
Webcast | Podcast